Sam Boylett-Long has been an accredited S&C coach with the UKSCA since 2012. Since completing his MSc in Human Performance in 2015, Sam has worked with a number of Women’s Football internationals during his 4 year spell with Reading Women .In January 2020 Sam began working with the GB Rowing team providing S&C and sport science support, leading various projects including warm up strategies – maximising physical readiness & developing objective diagnostics for Fmax assessment.
In this episode Sam discusses:
- His winding road into full-time S&C Coaching.
- His time at Reading FC Women’s team at the start of the Super League.
- A baptism of fire in Namibia with British Rowing during Covid.
- The various components that make up elite rowing performance.
You can listen to the episode in full here.
You can keep up to date with Sam via his Twitter: Sam Boylett_Long and his Instagram: @Sam_boylettlong . 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
Sam, welcome to the podcast awesome to have you all in this blistering hot afternoon in the UK
Sam Boylett-Long
now thanks Rob glad to be here just about got some aircon on so managed to stay reasonably cool.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, for those who obviously don’t know either of us we’ve obviously known each other in the past that summaries should use an awful lot of S&C coaches over the years. But you’ve gone on to bigger, better things than that. So before we dive into your work in rowing, tell us a bit about your own background growing up. What sports did you play? What were you a good athlete, a terrible athlete? Just, you know, a hopeful athlete. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, described myself as an eternal optimist. In many, many walks of life. Yeah, certainly wouldn’t say I was, you know, a great athlete growing up, but certainly through a lot of energy. On to onto the rugby pitch. It’s probably where I spent most of the time. Yeah, certainly as a teenager, and then that that passion sort of grew. A couple of stints with Sussex County level was probably the sort of peak of my sporting career at county level. And then, yeah, made a made a debut for my local club working most closely with notably with their their fifth team, the irregulars wedding regular, so I didn’t quite make it past the the fifth fifth string team, but I’ll probably leave that one there. And then yeah, from there, as a teenager, I sustained a pretty substantial hip injury from from a skiing accident, which I’d recovered from thankfully. And then I sort of found my next passion, which was cycling, which then probably wasn’t a great precursor to my next passion, which was, as you as you well know, becoming a founding member of the semies or St. Mary’s University, weightlifting and powerlifting clubs. So going from cycling to, to weightlifting, and then back again, actually, in the summer, that was a pretty, pretty tough turnaround. Going back to going back to my cycling club as a as a teenager and a couple of kilos, heavier. Mean, power output was pretty good. But yeah, it was a couple of instances of me with cramp side of the road and trying to chug some electrolytes, so I wouldn’t recommend that. But yeah, you know, weightlifting, powerlifting. Certainly for three years, you’re my undergrad at St. Mary’s then became my passion. And then since then, I managed to fall back into cycling, specifically track cycling, actually. And then, yeah, a couple of years on from there. I’m now training for a trail marathon. So everything in between really so I’ve done just enjoy, you know, getting out enjoying enjoying the outside. So yeah, still still fancied myself as a bit of a bit of a lifter? Certainly not at my semis day lifting currently. They’ve asked me why Sinclair is at the moment, but yeah, it’s not not great. But yeah, anything I can do to get outside at the moment to be honest, mate.
Rob Anderson
So when was it that S&C coaching kind of came in as a potential avenue for you what, or was it a teacher interest? Or how did you find out about transitioning, I think, might go down that room?
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, it was probably probably back at college. I mean, even even growing up, you know, I suppose you could say I got indoctrinated into into gym life, fairly early in year seven at secondary school, had a number of friends that sort of, you know, we’re trying out for rugby and football and were interested in the gym and, you know, kind of got roped into it and actually quite enjoyed the environment and what it meant in terms of having a goal that you’re working towards. And then yeah, fast forward college did a did a BTEC diploma in sport essentially. As again, I was just that way inclined, didn’t really you know, I wasn’t really an academic. Still wouldn’t really say I’m an academic now but that then opened up a lot of doors, looking into sort of vocational programmes and then again, played for worth in college you at the time when no tourists and the rugby scene along with Worthing rugby club, and, you know, massive area of rugby performances, you know, gym based, as we know, land based training, and training that physicality. And I think that sort of just sparked my interest. My supervisor at college I found found the St. Mary’s University S&C undergrad and suggested I’d apply for it applied and thankfully got on to that and that’s all she wrote really, I think you know, as as I’m sure we’ll get onto there’s a number of internships that you know
but that just continued to breed this this passion and excitement for for things S&C In sports science related. But yeah, it was probably starting off as a secondary school or college level that you know, S&C S&C found me and you know, I’ve just grabbed it with both hands really and run with it.
Rob Anderson
So let’s dig into those kind of stops along the way. So you mentioned internships. So where the where are your internships? And how did that post uni start to produce work opportunities and when that taken
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, so I’m straight off the St. Mary’s like most people come out of a sports science residency degree and I thought sweet got the bit of paper now let’s go do the stuff when the hopefully, you know, some form of IQ a guy you know, I can find a well paid job and you know, it’s essentially a hobby, but you know, you get those, those Venn diagrams dissecting and yet that’s that’s S&C, I love what I do, and I’m gonna find a job and get paid for it. Well, number of years past of me falling in and out of various internships and various building and labouring contractors worked on farms, personal trains, probably for two or three years before, you know, I got any real traction but straight after straight after uni. My first my first internship was under Matt spring at Brighton and Hove back in would have been 2013. So yeah, that was about when they were in the championship. And we’re pretty competitive in and out over the, over the next couple of years before they then managed to make the leap into the Prem. But, you know, under Matt, who’s now a lecturer at St. Mary’s uni, it was, it was under mark that, I suppose load monitoring, GPS, sports science, you know, endocrine analytics, all those sorts of things. You know, a lot of those things are quite new to me. Certainly those falling within like saliva sampling and those those sorts of things. And that’s, you know, the thing that really sparked my interest from from that, that sports science, that raw sport science background that I had, through St. Mary’s, because obviously it was S&C degree, not a sports science degree. But there was a lot of practical elements that, you know, really were interesting to me at the time, and certainly the the GPS side of things and load monitoring. You know, that expertise that I learned under Matt, I really, really sort of took that on board. And that really actually came back to pay dividends a couple of years later, when I was with reading women’s football, but I’ll come on to that in a sec. But unfortunately, like these things roll out in football, got to the end of the season, you know, try and line up a job yet. I think we’ve got something got some real tracks, traction, there’s definitely you know, roll for you here. And then unfortunately for me, Matt left Brighton in the offseason and went on to pastures new. And then went back to almost back to square one. You know, I had some good good networks, starting to build those couple of months, years later, again, personal training and working on various farms. I then managed to stumble into actually what was one of the best experiences of my life from a professional and personal development perspective was working up in sterling in Scotland, so under Neale Donald and David leaf, specifically so there again, I’ve kind of gone from sports science and we’ve, you know, diving back into S&C and you know those two so Neil’s now the head of S&C I think the si s and Dave’s now moved into more of a hot space role. But I still still try to keep in touch that worked with a number of athletes across triathlon, swimming, netball curling even so number the the guys that went to the Glasgow games 2014 I think. But yeah, so the curlers to the Winter Olympics. Yeah, that was an unbelievable opportunity. At the time, I was actually given a scenario where I was I had to choose between an internship with West Ham’s academy or an internship with the guys up in sterling and you know, took me about half hour to make that decision having had the phone call from Neil saying we want you to come and intern with us. Granted, the West Ham in internship was only going to be a year long and then the the internship happened Sterling ended up being I think, five months. So you know, difference in time, but in terms of the, the quality of learning under those guys was just immense. Certainly, like all you know, all things programming and periodization based. Yeah, they, you know, just a number of really excellent practitioners out there. And then network but again, unfortunately it wasn’t able to secure a job at the end of that, you know, from a from an institute perspective, they just didn’t have the funding which you know, absolutely fine but you know, rewind back to the relationships I built with Matt spring I actually was I think it was actually back on one of the farms I’ve worked previously got a phone call from Matt couple of months having finished at Scotland and Sterling and he said, got an opportunity that I think you know, be absolutely perfect for you it’s a it’s a it’s a funded Master’s I was thinking not really that interested in you know, academia it’s all about the coaching for me and being face to face you know, the cold call face for the athletes said No look, you know, it’ll be structured that you have the funded MSC you can choose where you want to do it. And actually, I ended up doing it through now. Varsity rivals to St. Mary’s those who don’t know, so a bit of a judice on that, I’m afraid. But at the time, I didn’t, I didn’t see the benefit of me going back to St. Mary’s or doing an SMC degree because I feel like I’d actually built a fair bit of knowledge in that that area having worked under under Neil and David in Scotland, so I thought actually, let’s let’s zoom this back out, let’s go into Sport Science ended up doing a an MSc in human performance at Brunel, whilst working pretty much every other hour, day under the sun with the Brentford first team. So back into football, so back into the championship. And then evenings were spent either doing reading research for the Masters, or actually coaching age group. So had this real nice balance between operating at a senior level looking at, you know, what, that provision to elite sport looks like in football, but then also having that real appreciation actually, of S&C within within a junior pathway within within football, and, again, that was back when Brentford had a you know, really substantial pathway and progression model. And now obviously, as you’ll know, they’ll have a, they’ll have a under 20 threes development programme, unfortunately, and again, got to the end of the season. And yeah, it was between myself and one of my friends, who I’m still close with now, who, who got the Sports Science full time gig with the first team. And he’s one of those where he was a specialist in that in that area of sports science and load management. I’d merely dabbled under Matt, you know, at Brighton and still learning, whereas you know, my true bread and butter really was S&C. So yeah, and the season finishes and then again, go my merry way with my my second bit of paper second qualification. And then yeah, again, it wasn’t until 2016. So this was two years, I think, after finishing my Masters year or two, where I actually got my first paid gig. So, you know, from 2012 to 20 2016. Yeah. So, you know, good three, four years of internships and trying to, you know, hold living to pay for these these unpaid placements. Finally, got my first paid gig with reading women who had just been newly promoted into the women’s Super League, from what is now the Women’s Championship. And for me, that really was, you know, had a hell of an experience for a number of reasons. But I think the first one that I’m often or at the time, I was definitely, you know, not thankful enough for it was the fact that because they were newly promoted, and the FAA still has this structure in place where I think teams in the women’s Super League or championship, you know, have a have a allocated pot of money for S&C coaches. And certainly now this is, this is pertinent because of the ACL crisis, if you want to call it that, that women’s football is seeing. You know, it’s more evident that we need S&C and sport science practitioners at those clubs. But so I was thankful for that. But it was more that the manager and the first team coach never had worked with an S&C coach or sports scientists before so when I entered in that role, it was very much a carte blanche of well, Sam’s the SMC Sports Science Guy, so whatever you want to do, you can you can deliver that and you know, we’ll have full faith in what you want to deliver as a as a sport science S&C strategy. So I was there I guess that, you know, I really ground my teeth in, you know, getting stuck into it. And I was really, you know, first time accountable for everything. You know, we’re talking all of the inferences from GPS. What I think we should you know, like from a structure perspective, the land based training, robustness strategies. And then even actually my first experience of line managing. So we also had a number of essences within the development and pathway space. So going from, you know, going from an intern to that was a hell of a jump.
But yeah, one of the bests or one of the best jumps, you know, personally and professionally. And then I suppose was with, with reading women up until December 20 2019, and then managed to manage to get a little bit of time off over Christmas holidays, and then started with rowing. Yeah, Jan 2020, just just pre COVID crisis hitting. So that was that was a hell of an experience in itself, really, that that initial initial four weeks. The crazy thing was starting was the now chief coach of the men’s side. He was he was due to go on this, this camp to Namibia. And you know, if you gave me an atlas and told me our training camp for the men’s rowing teams going to Namibia, I would have been able to point to Namibia on a map. That, you know, I’ve heard that they maybe had a rugby team based on playing Jonah Lomu rugby, you know, 2003 on the Playstation or something. But yeah, to actually think that, you know, Olympic programmes go to these places to train. Didn’t even think about it. But with the Institute, you know, there’s a fair bit of fair bit of processes around HR and recruitment, as you’re well know. And I got told that my first two weeks was basically me doing back to back modules, meeting various key stakeholders. And basically, I had 48 hours notice that I need to check my passport was in date, because the now chief coach had gone ill. And I was basically booked on to booked onto a flight to Namibia. So I mean, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to be honest, to this new this new role, then the new role at the time, because, you know, I would have been a couple of 1000 miles away from these athletes whom, you know, I’d be talking to you via WhatsApp, and, you know, whereas what actually happened was, you know, ridiculously fast turnaround to me running around reading Town Centre, making sure I’ve got you know, mozzie mozzie spray and all that sort of stuff to continent I’ve never visited. I’m working with some incredible practitioners and athletes, but you know, I wouldn’t have changed it. For anything to be honest. It just meant I was staying up late doing these these management and risk assessment modules, whilst also worrying about programming, but yeah, wouldn’t have changed it and actually enabled me more contacts under the coaches, more contact some of the athletes and also the support staff never met before. And it was really, you know, really ramped up the learning opportunities. And most importantly, those relationships you build with, you know, with the coaches and you know, drinking a beer or wine or yoga and grow blur, you know, have an evening and trying to try and build that relationship and that rapport in, you know, incredibly quickly. So appreciate that was me waffling for, for a good 510 Mate, but very much a whistlestop tour of going from, I’d hardly say a rags to riches story, but certainly going from intern to hopefully reasonable practitioner and Olympic programme.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a there’s a whistlestop tour. So tell us a bit about that initial job wearing the pathway. We work with you at the elite and where you win in the pathway. What were the numbers of athletes and the kind of level experience you’re working with paints a bit of a picture of what sort of the context was for that
Sam Boylett-Long
back back at reading that first paid gig.
Rob Anderson
Now in terms of your that first role within the rowing centre? Okay.
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, so same same role as and as I’m doing now really is just leading the S&C provision for the men predominantly and, you know, the crossover between programmes is, you know, mainly to cover or historically, the men used to train a Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, which is still essentially, you know, the the crown jewel, if you like, of the institute’s you know, locations. But now, because of COVID, um, just, you know, the men have essentially got used to a certain way of operating so we’re now based actually at the National Training Centre, which has kept them close to close to reading. But, yeah, rewind back when we were ambition. You know, we’d have 30 athletes in the gym at a time. So we’d roughly have 30 men, or lifting at the same time anyone who’s been to Bishop you know, it’s incredibly well laid out. You’ve got platforms, racks, plates, you know, capacity that gyms probably closer to 6070 athletes. Um, so 30 You know, in there, I mean, they fill the space rovers because they are ginormous, you know, to two and a half metres, some of them, you know, 100 250 and kilos on the men’s side, they fill the space and fill the cages. And that was actually probably the biggest transition was sort of like, you know, working with with female footballers who were probably, you know, my height, if not a little bit taller, compared to working with, you know, these ginormous, you know, physical, physical animals. So, that was probably the biggest change. But yeah, I mean, typically, you know, we’d have 30 athletes in the gym. Most weight sessions will be anywhere between 75 and 75 minutes and two hours depending on the content we’ve got to get through maniacal include warm up and you know, the robustness, preparation, a briefing, so most sessions will start with me shouting at the lads and pointing at a telly with the programme on it, and what we’re getting after and why. And then that’s typically preceded by the first S&C session of a new block. And this is something that’s done across men’s women’s and the Paralympic programme is is just setting the tone of what each block of training is going to look like. And if there’s any testing, and what the sort of outcomes are from from each block of training, probably more pertinent for your camp blocks of training. But in terms of numbers, yeah, 30 is probably the limit unless we’ve got spaces of work where we’ll have development athletes coming in. And you know, that number could creep closer to 40. But in rare cases, it’s probably more on the development scene where just because of the way that the Olympic programme runs, we can have anywhere between 1480 athletes in the mission gym at one time. So that’s that’s where you know myself and and Ben sheet the women’s S&C will look to support Alice who’s our S&C for the 20 threes programme will have to support her just because you know coach to athlete ratio can end up being quite poor. I mean, for myself that calibre shim. I’m quite fortunate with the men that we actually split the group in half. So you know, in terms of S&C practitioner to athlete is probably about a one one to 15 which I think for some guys, you know, you’d probably say you’d want to try and you know, increase that. So a high number of S&C coaches, but just because of the way that we’re running or operating at the moment, it’s just not feasible. Obviously been working over a Bisham is about half an hour away from the National Training Centre. And as I said earlier, since, yeah, since COVID, times this this split had had just happened organically and actually, you know, speaking with the chief coach, he actually prefers us to lift here, certainly in terms of like, time management, and that, that that r&r, between water session and weights, you know, they the athletes have got much more time to relax and recoup energy before targeting the next session. You know, again, that was the second biggest change was, was actually understanding what the human body can do from a, from a physical output perspective. I’ve never seen anything like it before that that training camp in Namibia, you know, I was trying to get to every single session I could, you know, be on the S&C, the S&C room. And, you know, you’re looking at guys doing three sessions a day, four to five days a week, some Sundays off otherwise, you know, two sessions. So typically, you know, it’ll be a three session day, Monday, Tuesday to session day, Wednesday, three session Thursday, sometimes two sessions on a Friday to on a Saturday and then Sunday off and then rinse and repeat through the season. It’s it’s pretty gruelling. Given the nature of the sport, you know, the coaches will say its requirements. And then from a weight perspective, you’re typically looking at a minimum of three to four weight sessions throughout certainly like the winter block of training. So if we start in September, you know, we’ll probably keep three to four weight sessions through until Feb March time. And then that number can increase up to eight weight sessions a week, which is the case when we enter our camps training blocks in Sierra Nevada. Which you know, I think that’s pretty good ski resort but yeah, food’s not great you know, it’s an okay establishment but yeah, there’s some some areas of high risk for us certainly because the food isn’t that good. So you couple eight weights training sessions. plus, you know, the the physiological training sessions on top of that, you know, can can cause a bit of concern, certainly in terms of mass loss across the group. But yeah, hopefully that paints paints a pretty broad brushstroke on the number of training sessions, what that looks like, you know, again, when I was sat in the back of an algo room in Namibia, my first week on the job, you know, sat there and hopefully it was able to hide the grimness under my mask, because I just never seen so much training done in such a such a short space of time as a 24 hour period. You know, to give you a very rough insight to what those three sessions looks like, you know, I’ve already said weights, if we say one of those three sessions is a weight session, you know, minimum was 75 to 90 minutes of solid traditional strength training. The other two sessions potentially looks like a 24k ago. So 24k on a concept to odometer and the other one potentially looks like a 16k logo. So, you know, the guys will often look at a programme and if there’s a 30k day planned, that’s that’s a bloody tough day at the office and anyone’s who anyone who’s hopped on an algo would, would know that it’s pretty gruelling. Anyway, I actually got goaded into the last. The last training camp we had at altitude Sierra Nevada. I got goaded into doing a 16k Ergo. And you know, I like to say actually, pretty bold comment, but currently a British rowing I currently have the course record on the 16k Ergo at altitude. This is you know, predominantly within the S&C department, I don’t know if any other support staff member has been stupid enough to try and hold 16k Trying to try and get that done at altitude. But yeah, I suppose that’s probably stemmed from my my philosophy of, of trying stuff, I’m always interested to, you know, try and experience while the athletes experiencing summertime and reading, you know, I’d come continually be out in the pitch and playing around with you know, agility based drills or you know, movement challenges to include in warmup mainly so I can understand it. And then also, because, you know, no one wants to look silly demoing these things. Yeah, I prefer the rowing, rowing tech is is not my forte. And there’s there’s definitely some footage of that, which I can share afterwards more for more for a laugh. But yeah, we’re certainly a work in progress. I’ll say that much. Okay, yeah,
Rob Anderson
you’ve hit on a few things that I want to pick up. First is I don’t know about you. But like I’ve experienced over the years, there’s certain sports where you may get athletes that you can get athletes, they’re a little bit lazy, maybe a lazy footballer, or lazy winging rugby, or whatever. And then there’s sports like swimming and rowing way, if you’re lazy, you’re probably not getting out of bed at four in the morning, you’re probably not going to go and sit in a boat, you’re probably not going to row 20 columns. So the sport itself has a natural way of getting rid of those people. And so there’s just a huge culture of work hard work being out, you know, being able to suffer for one of a better word, but what are some of the characteristics that make an elite level roller? We’ve already mentioned? Obviously, anthropometrics, maybe we’re probably at least a foot too small to be any any rowing boat. So give us a bit of an overview what what are some of the kind of, I guess, physical characteristics, height wise, etc. What about the strength of power characteristics? What are you looking at, in terms of what the demands of elite level rowing?
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, so I think you touched on already, but in terms like the raw, you know, anthropometric here, you’re sort of talking like, long or large wingspan, relative to relative to height. You know, certainly looking like you’re most happy. One of the flagbearers at the Tokyo Games, you know, is probably a great example of what a typical rower would would look like from a from a model perspective. And that’s model in terms of the anthros not necessarily in terms of the actual, you know, rig just in case Moe is gonna listen to this one. But jesting aside, adjusting aside, you know, in terms of the, in terms of the underlying physiology. Some of the KPIs that you know, we’d often refer to would be power at two and four minimal of lactate, which is often utilised as a as an assessment, you know, looking at like the ball shift to see if someone’s actually moved on from a physiological perspective. So utilising blood lactate. Otherwise, you know, obviously traditional measure measures like vo two max you know, as you say, long leave is obviously going to help it’s not to say that you know, if your sub six foot that you don’t stand the chance, but obviously from a physics perspective, and work done it’s it’s it’s a little bit easier. But actually, what I’m finding out more and more from a technical perspective, is rowing is not a simple sport to objectively quantify the technical demands. Hence why if you were to do like a PubMed search, yes, there are a lot of papers on, you know, rough percentages of, of, you know, distribution of work done on on a 2k Ergo assessment, but actually on the water is incredibly difficult. Certainly, when you, you know, try and get the white lab coats out, and, you know, really trying to, to get rid of the noise, obviously, because the environmental conditions, but even actually, a at a crew level, obviously, those who don’t know, within rowing have two separate disciplines, you have sculling, and you have sweep rowing sweep with one, or and then sculling is with two, straight away, you know, if you have someone in a single skull, that’s just one athlete, so you can, you know, quite cleanly if you like biomech, the boats and the athlete up, and you’ve only got one athlete to worry about, as soon as you then have a suite athlete, they need a partner, they need a pairs partner. So straight away, you have this noise of actually, if this athlete, you know, if we’re in a in a crew together, and you’re sort of you know, leaning one way, and you’re disturbing the boat in one element, I’m then going to have to try and counteract that. So straightaway, there’s one area of noise. So in terms of like the degrees of freedom within rowing is vast, is ginormous. There’s a lot of, you know, in house work that we’re doing as well at the moment with, with performance innovation to try and better understand the technical demands of the skill. Again, you know, it’s not just the 16k Ergo that I’ve done during the Tokyo cycle, so 2021 The Tokyo Games whilst the guys are out there, I was fortunate enough to jump into a into a double skulls with one of the guys now we’re still doing some work here. And yeah, notoriously difficult actually, to try and balance a boat, especially, you know, certainly some of your smaller boats were actually you know, your bomb is almost overhanging, overhanging the boat. Yeah, so in terms of balancing, you know, what is an incredibly light piece of kit, incredibly difficult. And when you watch it on the on the telly, they they make it look effortless in terms of that balancing, it almost looks like you know, anyone can just jump in and move, move about and just move forward and up, up and down the slide. There’s just so much more nuance to it. And a lot of the coaches all use this term, our you know, Rob’s Rob’s a great boat mover. And when I first heard that term, as they’re all boat movers, they will, they will do in the thing doesn’t really make sense to me, you know, and actually, you spend a lot of time and I’ve spent hours and hours up and down towpath. Listening to how the coaches coach and I’m trying to ask good questions, what I think are good questions around the the coaches cues that they are giving, what they’re seeing, and what you know, they’re interpreting, and then giving back to the athlete in terms of feedback. But objectively, there’s still not an awful lot from a technical efficiency perspective, that we’re able to currently hang our hat on. So give me an example of like cycling, you know, a lot of certainly like the Velodrome based cycling and track cycling, using crank base power metres. straightaway, you can look at asymmetries you can look at your collecting data, every single training session on these athletes, not just internal external training load. But, you know, you’re looking specifically from a Biomek perspective, like how quickly they’re putting the power down, what’s that look like? What degree was the peak force or peak power that they’re producing? And then you can extrapolate from that, you know, your KPIs and what’s important, what isn’t? And, you know, that’s that’s an area that I’ve started to delve into more so from an S&C Pyrrhus perspective in, you know, what are the underlying forces that are required required? And then can we actually work back to what are some land based diagnostics that we’re able to use? And then try and dovetail that with our performance innovation? And actually, what is it that they’re seeing on the water from a you know, what denotes performance on the water? Instead of going the halfway house is a 2k, ergo, because I don’t think the 2k Ergo is a before is a particularly good halfway house. Because what from what we know, you know, from an injury perspective and front loading the stroke on an ergo compared to the water, injury rates are higher on an ergo compared to the water just from a compressive perspective on this Fine. And just like the boat field athletes will often talk to me in the gym about oh, actually, this exercise feels more like what we experience on the water compared to this exercise. Again, okay, that’s really interesting from a dynamic correspondence perspective, you know, try and pick that apart, is there something in the specificity of the task? Well, you know, there’s, there’s more research on that in terms of, you know, actually, the more relatable the task is to the outcome, then there’s potentially going to be a high degree of transfer, when we’re talking about that transfer from land base training to try and improve the sport. So there’s, there’s, you know, there’s definitely some merit in looking at that. And there’s, there’s hundreds of questions I’ve got, you know, all the time for other other disciplines.
If a coach calls you a boat mover, that’s probably like one of the best compliments you’ve had to get given. But from a raw physiological perspective, yeah, there’s no shying away, about, you know, to and for minimal power out those, those numbers. And then, yeah, the lever arm.
Rob Anderson
So, one of the other things that it would be remiss of me not to ask, if we’re looking at this is we talked a little about work ethic. And, you know, it’s probably a little bit different every sports that were different in terms of a you know, what’s required, obviously, rowing, they love early morning session on on the river. But also, as you alluded to these guys, big human beings, like they’re tall, they’ve got massive levers, they’re also doing an incredible amount of work in the boat in the gym, then you also talked about the importance of maintaining muscle mass. So from a performance lifestyle perspective, obviously, you know, sleep plays a big part of it, but let’s, let’s dig in a little bit into the nutrition side of things. I mean, how many calories these guys gonna have to consume a day to just fuel their bodies, because they are big units, big engines?
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, depending on the is ginormous amount, to be honest, with the most, you know, most training days, somewhere between five and seven, seven and a half 1000. You know, depending on the volume of training, you know, it’s a vast, vast quantity. And, you know, there are two things actually, I’ll probably pick up whilst I’m on the first one is our, our chef who does an incredible job. And, you know, as abled and we are the NGB is able to subsidise a lot of the costs for the athletes. Which, which is good. We’re not at a level where, you know, like football, for example, you know, most football clubs will just prepare every single meal of the day for the athletes. You know, the resources, we’ve got our our finite, but you know, the the food that mass and the chef puts on this is incredible. And then the second area, you know, you touched on around like the performance lifestyle. And one thing you know, I think we do incredibly well as a as a sport, is what we call the Friday forums. So throughout the throughout the calendar year, guys who’s our, you know, who’s a sport science lead, will take up opportunities to either pull in, like practitioners from outside the sport that he has within the network. So a recent one was Dr. Luke Gunther, who was who’s Yeah, you know, probably widely known as that the sleep guru who came in to do a talk on sleep hygiene, and all those and everything comes under that. We’ve had other ones, you know, which had been directed specifically to like, you know, race strategies, for example. So like, this weekend, the guys were in Varese racing. And it was more like, you know, the nutritionist is travelled to get a better understanding of what, you know, the demands are throughout the day, you know, another Gareth orgas, who has been with us for a couple of months, but the sport has always had a nutritionist, whether it’s part time or full time. And, you know, we we’ve got a fairly substantial library of, you know, resources for the athletes as well, which they can access at any time. And that would be you know, examples of, you know, hypertrophy based training, what that looks like working with myself or you know, another S&C practitioner and the underlying energy cost of that. There’ll be other ones for you know, lightweight rowers who need to make weight, and there’ll be strategies on how to do that, or how best to do that. So yeah, I think from a performance lifestyle perspective, when it concerns like the training programme, and you know, those sorts of things, I think, is fairly well covered. I’d say it’s fairly well covered from an education side of things, but in terms of actually, if we were to, you know, a hypothetical survey the athletes I think, I think there’d be a number of them, which would be fairly stringent on, you know, sleep times what, you know, their strategies for winding down in the evenings, whether that’s, you know, an ergogenic, or you know, what their diet looks like in rolling into that, that sleep to try and bring about that sleep inertia. And then recovery, what that looks like, you know, going into their sleep. But then even their nutritional strategy throughout, you know, warmups and race day and things like that, I think is fairly well. You know, structured I think, from here from if it’s not for myself, it’d be from, you know, the nutritionist or the chef or even like sports Psych. So even having like psychological interventions in place to aid aid, sleep is something that we’re we’re trying to shout about a little bit more to the athlete. So yeah, I think it’s, you know, as you said earlier on, like the the type of athlete. Yeah, it’s no, no surprise that a sport like rowing or swimming, probably, you know, has a fair bit of athlete turnover. And it’s, you know, it’s because the, the programmes that, you know, these bigger programmes that are physiologically based, you know, it’s a huge volume of training that they’re undertaking. And, you know, that that does and will take a toll, I think psychologically, and I think, you know, the athletes that utilise the sport science, MDT, or resources are those that probably hang around like a little bit longer. You know, that doesn’t have to be sport cycle performance lifestyle, I think it’s also, you know, keeping themselves healthy. So in rowing is no surprise that we get a tonne of hips and backs are probably our two biggest time time loss injuries, or LBP. So the guys, you know, stay on programme, the longest are probably those that have, you know, spent a lot of time with myself, at the physios on making sure they’re doing their prep for sessions. You know, there’s a handful that will like most be lucky and just get the programme done, and not do too much. Yeah, outside of those, those training sessions. But, you know, I sort of see my primary role is a risk mitigator. You know, and I want to keep athletes in the boat. And that was always my primary role when I was at reading is, you know, I love to watch sport and love watching the women, you know, go out on the pitch, you know, every, every year, every game much, much to how I enjoy watching the guys on the telly and when I can in person regattas, you know, because I want to watch them tear it up and be the best version of themselves. So that’s why I sort of think my primary role as an S&C coach, and my philosophy is to try and help keep them in the boat, whether it’s training or competition, you know, keeping players on the pitch. And then the second is the performance strand. Because hopefully, if you keep people in, you know, the sport, from a technical perspective, you know, hopefully they’re improving at a higher rate, because they’re completing more training, not just from a physiological perspective, but from a from a technical demands perspective. And then also, from my perspective, as a as an SMC and performance is incredibly difficult to go, you know, off the start line, they’re, they’re producing X amount of torque around the knee extensors or around the knee joint. So then, you know, we need to extrapolate from that. We’re not just there yet. It’s not as close as like a, you know, a track star in track cycling is for or, you know, for care in or whatever discipline, way easier in that sport, to extrapolate from the task. But yeah, certainly, certainly watch this space. Because I’d hope to hope to help that.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, the performance last time was massive, I think. Yeah, I guess for reference for those people listening, like, if you imagine, you know, if you ever had a hungry teenage boy, and the fridge is like a revolving door, in my experience, most teenage boys are probably about 3000 calories a day. So if you take that and double it, that’s pretty difficult to consume in a way that’s actually got some nutritional value. You know, people might look at that and say, Oh, fantastic, I’ll get a couple of dominoes in, that’s probably not going to fuel you sufficiently to get through 16 columns. So you know, that is a it’s a logistical problem really isn’t to be able to consume that many calories in a way that’s actually going to nourish your body. But also, it’s just a big undertaking feedback, eat that much. So I can see why, you know, Romans one of the sports that probably has nutrition support a lot earlier on then maybe some of the other ones because it’s just, you know, that is a whole nother separate training mode, being able to eat that much in a way that’s useful.
Sam Boylett-Long
That’s very true. Very, very true. Lots of lots of overnight oats and lots of porridge. Lots of Bircher, lots of Bircher muesli type stuff, certainly First session. But yeah, it’s definitely a big undertaking that yeah, definitely a few athletes on the men’s side struggle, I think to, you know, get it just just to get the sheer volume in.
Rob Anderson
I can only imagine, I mean, having worked in rugby and been helping guys get up to, you know, 90 100 110 kilos. That’s pretty tricky, but they’re not doing anything at the same training volume. So I can imagine that’s a really, really tough task. I want to be respectful of your time. So what’s next for you in the next 12 to 18 months? Obviously, your Olympic Games isn’t a million miles away. What else is kind of at the forefront of your visions?
Sam Boylett-Long
Yeah, so certainly, I suppose acutely, we’ve got a number of competitions, up until World Champs in September. And then, you know, a bit of downtime. And then yeah, so for those that don’t know, a lot of, I suppose a lot of different sports or have qualification events throughout the year rowing. Like, like a number of other Olympic sports, there’ll be at the World Champs. So there’ll be a number of spots available for for the next year’s Olympics. Based on where you rank, essentially, at World Championships, you know, that there’s a lot of energy going into that. So a lot of my work over the last six months has actually been well, six months, probably the last 12 to 18 months has actually been around warmups. Which, you know, sounds incredibly simple, but looking at optimised, like the endocrine responses throughout the day. So that you know, guys are able to maximise their performance on the water. So there’s, there’s a tonne around that, which is kind of ongoing. And I see that as you know, trying to push through to Paris and really impact some, some competitions along the way. And then yeah, the other big project I’m working on through to through to Paris at the moment is a lot of work in our performance diagnostics. So yeah, there’s a bit of work to do there. But certainly from a from a S&C within rowing perspective, you know, historically the sports always utilised key lifts so you know, back squat, front squat deadlift, bench press, bench poor and and your power clean. And we’ve historically as a sport has taken those as gospel from, from a f max perspective, if you like, have a proxy measure. So yeah, my, my thinking in the medium to long term has been to try and establish some better objective diagnostics to use. So I’m currently playing around with it and Isometric Leg Press variation, and potential to bring in some ice Okay, assessments for knee extension of flexion. So those those probably the two biggest areas that I’m looking to impact pre Paris. Yeah, so watch this space, really? I think, yeah, I’ll hopefully hopefully Pull my finger out and start getting some good datasets on, on that across across the men squad. You know, and it’s worth saying that the robustness strategy is something that you know, I see is a constant and by that that’s, you know, when I referenced earlier hips and backs you know, it’s more keeping guys healthy in the boat. So that’s, that’s the overarching robustness strategy. So it’s making making sure we got our tissue conditioning in place around the hip and trunk and then also like we’re able to transfer force effectively through the through the kinetic chains
Rob Anderson
Fantastic, well, where can people follow along if you you know, where can they hunt you down on social media or LinkedIn with best place to see what you’re up to?
Sam Boylett-Long
You know what I don’t I don’t actually throw too much out there but I am on on Twitter and Instagram. Probably more more stuff going on on the Instagram or there will Professor need to again need to start putting some more stuff out there. I hopefully find some stuff that’s that’s worth following or watching but yeah, Instagrams? Probably Probably, probably the one to find me. But yeah, if anyone’s got any specific rowing questions, or S&C, you know, I’m always happy to have you to chew the fat and and grab a coffee or a beer and talk things, all things sports science and S&C really. So yeah, those two will be able to take my handles I’m not I’m not that ofay with my socials. But yeah, I’m sure if you throw soundboard at long into A into Twitter or orange de farmi
Rob Anderson
FC Well, we think those agnostic in the show notes for people who want to follow along. Well, thanks so much, mate. It’s been it’s been a real pleasure to catch up and great to see what you’re up to wetter, the UK Sport Institute with the rowing programme and yeah, to get your thoughts on on nothing’s wrong. So thanks very much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Sam Boylett-Long
Now, Thanks, Rob has always good to go to talk shop