ASCA Podcast #50 - Ross Smith

Ross Smith is the Strength and Conditioning Lead at the Australian institute of Sport. Over 20 years strength and conditioning experience working across multiple sports and organisations. The past 15 years at the AIS working with development and elite athletes across multiple sports including boxing, taekwondo, judo, athletics, cycling, rowing, basketball, modern pentathlon, water polo, winter sports and playing a leading role in AIS intensive rehabilitation. QUOTES “Do you understand the sport? What are the actual physical requirements of the sport? What are the structures of the year? You need to understand these basic things before designing a S&C program” “Mimicking a boxing movement pattern in the gym normally doesn’t have the desired outcome” “You want to develop the range and the movement pattern but if you don’t develop the strength through that range, you are opening yourself up for injury” “Are you effective in standing on one leg and applying and directing force? If you can do that, its of massive benefit to any exercise you want to do” “I still like RPE x time but load isn’t load – where is that load coming from and what type of load is it? What type of physioogiocal loading is it? Is there impact associated with it?” SHOWNOTES 1) From athletics coaching to S&C in NSWIS and AIS 2) Combat sports at the AIS and getting a sports coach's trust 4) What a training week looks like for boxers at the AIS 5) Common injury concerns and the ability to link upper and lower bodies together 6) Developing proprioceptive awareness 7) Monitoring training load - sRPE, physiological loading and impact loading 8) Getting the right balance between physiological and impact load across a training cycle 9) Considerations for strength and conditioning around weight cutting 10) Lessons from combat sports for other sports