The Hub S & C Programme
Senior Strength and Conditioning Programme
News and Stories by Nino Severino
At The Hub, Strength and Conditioning is taken extremely seriously, it’s one of our BIG3 components ™, and an area that we find as a team of consultants, coaches, and educators we are continually asked about. S & C should be looked at by all age groups of the athlete community, this needs to be linked very closely, and skilfully to age-appropriate programme managing.
Strength and conditioning, if skilfully managed will be accompanied by field testing, laboratory testing, functional movement screening, injury prevention programmes, to name but a few areas of the sports science portfolio. I believe that it also provides the S & C Coach with an incredible opportunity, through messaging and conversation to deliver very valuable mental developmental areas for the athlete. The athlete can very often build a significant and loyal relationship with the S & C Coach, and use this relationship opportunity for conversation, and to receive counsel and advice. It’s also another personality and character to add to the athlete’s team, and another member who can offer great support through their skill delivery of S & C.
During the time I and my team have been working with athletes in S & C, we have worked with every level of athlete, from almost every sport, across all ages and genders. I can honestly say that the journey has been an incredible one, not only being delivered in the UK, but across the World. Our portfolio has included junior club athletes, aspiring towards regional status, to National and British Champions, all the way through to Commonwealth, professional and Olympians.
I can say, with confidence, that once an athlete begins to invest in S & C and its associated areas, its benefits are almost instantly felt and seen. This part of the athlete’s life is very often taken through to the phase where the athlete does not compete any more. Maintaining a level of fitness and wellbeing is an area that stays with the athlete, they often find it very difficult to not have a fitness and conditioning programme as part of their life.
The gym is not only an opportunity for the athlete to build a healthy relationship with the S & C Coach, its also the chance to meet other athletes as well. One aspect of what we have built at The Hub, is the chance for athletes across many sports to meet each other. The image above is a treasured one, its two athletes whose life paths would almost definitely not have crossed if it was not for The Hub, Oscar Wai, professional tennis player and Finn Steele, professional football player. It was the gym and strength and conditioning that created a very special relationship between the two, the type of relationship that only two professional athletes could ever develop. In their own specific sports, they would have accumulated life experiences which would allow them to understand each other, and from this point valuable conversations would emerge.
It’s been fantastic to see sports such as women’s football developing in such a dynamic fashion and capturing the attention of the world. We have supported female athletes across many sports, golf, karate, cricket, basketball, tennis, to name but a few. Female footballers take their development very seriously, the players we are working with, are committed to their strength and conditioning programmes, and very much accept, that this component does not only support the performance area of their sport, but it heavily links into the injury prevention focus.
Through our strength and conditioning programme, we are changing attitudes and perceptions, many of our athletes, including our female football players are including the support of another ‘Top Table’ member of The Hub, James Reynolds, a master physiotherapist. James creates a link between the areas of injury prevention and strength and conditioning, he also weaves other areas of support into our programme offering, such as musculoskeletal screening.
Designing high quality strength and conditioning programmes that reflect the age, and level of the athlete is a highly skilled area. At The Hub, we ensure that our programmes are age appropriate, and cover the many areas of S & C that will create a well balance body, which the athlete can rely on during training and competition. We also focus on designing programmes that deal with the repetitive nature of strength training, we aim to design with creativity, using a depth of methods and principles to ensure that the programmes are always stimulating, dynamic and motivational.
My speciality area was movement, this specific area of sport provided me with an opportunity to make my name in performance sport. I identified that power in the gym needs to be harnessed, it needs to also be transitioned into the multifaceted fabric of physical movement in the field of sport specific training and competition. I would always advice that strength and conditioning programmes are linked with movement, and neural bridges are created between the gym and the sport specific fields. Creating vertical power through lifting as an example, is limited, unless it can efficiently and economically be transferred through to multidirectional movement, linked to disassociation through the chain of the body.
The Hub training, support and education is delivered from multiple sites, by The Hub team of experts.