Return to Sport (RTS): What Physiotherapists Need From Strength and Conditioning

Most athletes leave rehab symptom-free but not sport-ready, and that gap is where most reinjury happens. Here’s what the Bern consensus and the latest research say about closing it: load, testing, psychological readiness, and what physios and S&C coaches need from each other.

Youth Strength and Conditioning: What the Research Actually Says

Does lifting stunt growth? Will it damage growth plates? What age is too young? Six position statements give the same answer: lifting isn’t the risk. Poor coaching and too much sport are. Here’s what the research says about safe ages, growth plates, maturation and weightlifting, and how to programme for young athletes.

Velocity Based Training (VBT): Zones, Profiling & Velocity Loss

Stop one set early and you could gain the same strength with 40% fewer reps. This evidence-based guide shows what bar speed really measures, how to build a load-velocity profile, which velocity loss threshold to use, and where VBT falls short, so you can program it with real athletes.

Velocity Based Training (VBT) for Team Sport: In-Season Load Management

Your players’ 1RM from pre-season is already out of date. This evidence-based guide shows how to use bar speed to manage in-season load: set velocity loss thresholds, shape the week around the fixture, and keep players strong and fast all season without the guesswork.

Acceleration Speed Profile For Football

Every footballer’s GPS data already holds an acceleration-speed profile. This evidence-based guide shows how to build one from normal training sessions with no sprint test, how to read A0 and S0, and how to use the profile to tell an acceleration-limited player from a speed-limited one and train each gap.

FV Curve Profile For Acceleration Speed

Two athletes, same 20 m time, opposite training needs. Learn how the force-velocity profile reveals what’s really driving your athletes’ acceleration, and how to turn F0, V0 and Pmax into a targeted speed plan.

Acceleration Speed Development

Most sprints in sport end before athletes ever hit top speed, so acceleration often decides the game. Drawing on studies from Weyand, Morin and Nagahara, we break down why force beats fast legs, why direction matters, how the hamstrings drive it, and how to train, test and fix it.

Change Of Direction (COD) Deficit

A fast 5-0-5 time doesn’t mean an athlete changes direction well, because most of that time is straight-line sprinting. Learn how the change of direction (COD) deficit isolates the turn, why it can re-rank your athletes, and where it falls short in youth testing.

Strength & Power Development

Most sport actions are over in under 0.3 seconds, so the strongest athlete doesn’t always win. What matters is how much force you can produce, fast. Drawing on nine peer-reviewed papers, this evidence-based guide shows coaches how to build strength first and then convert it into power, with practical loads, methods and a season plan.

GameSpeed for Team Sports

Your fastest player on the testing sheet isn’t always the fastest player on the pitch. In elite football and rugby, most sprints are curved, start on the move and end in a duel, and few look anything like a 40m test. This evidence-based guide explains what GameSpeed really is and how to train it: acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, agility and force.