
The Wonderful Sporting World of the Hub
by Hubsport Online | March 28th, 2024
News and Stories by Nino Severino
What a wonderful World of sport we have created at The Hub, every day is truly a joy for The Hub Team, and I as the founder. We are attracting athletes from almost every sport, all genders, ages and levels, and have been fortunate enough to apply our skills across the World.
I would just like to cover several support areas that we include in our resource and support material.

Screening:
Strength and Conditioning has become valued and popular particularly in the UK in the last 10 years.
There has been recognition that most, if not all elite sports people require a high level of structured athletic development and physical conditioning to compliment technical and tactical coaching.
As the support practices around athletes have evolved, there has been a real focus on linking the medical, and physiotherapy practices with those of the strength and conditioning. Initially there was in many sports a slightly multi-disciplinary approach, where all those with a vested interest in the physical development of an individual ‘took care’ of ‘their’ area. Thus doctors would medically screen, physiotherapists would carry out their Musculo-Skeletal screenings and treatment when required, and the strength and conditioning coach would deliver the fitness training and testing.
This can at times lead to a poor-quality training environment. Good practice in recent times would suggest that a quality training environment includes a multi-faceted approach where all the support services around an athlete are more integrated.

Performance Testing:
Why Have Testing and Analysis?
The Reasons For ‘Testing’ Athlete
- Testing highlights the strengths and weakness of an athlete enabling a training programme to be devised which will be tailored to specifically improve that athlete in the future.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of a training programme. Is it working?
- To measure fitness levels following injury, training blocks e.g. ‘Pre’, ‘off’ and ‘in’ season.
- Talent identification
- To aid motivation and support current and future goal/target setting.
- To evaluate progress or regression.

Mental Skills:
It takes so many areas of support to ensure that the athlete has the best possible chance of living a life of wellbeing, but also primed for performance and the chance to train, compete, and win. The culture and environment the athlete exists in must be harmonious, peaceful, with positive outcomes. Part of our support is the MP4S programme (Mind Power 4 Success). This programme supports the ‘Sporting Trilogy™’, Athlete, Coach and Parent with the methods and principes of applying strategies’ that enable a healthy sporting life for all, whilst developing the athlete’s mental strength and emotions.
Supporting coaches and parents, and providing athletes, with mentoring and the skills to develop their minds for performance and overall well-being is a major part of our programme. Developing mental strength and athletic intelligence is driven by the need to be ready for the challenges that sport, and indeed life will deliver. Having the ability to mentally cope with these challenges has a dual value, it enhances the chances of sports development through knowledge, and protects the athlete from potential mental and emotional negativity and regression.
It will include the following:
- Mental Skills Blueprint
- Developing Mental Strength
- Athletic Personality and Character
- The Switch
- Athletic Precepts and Virtues
- Developing Focus, concentration, and discipline

Injury Prevention & Rehab:
What Is Injury Prevention?
It is often the biggest frustration for an athlete, coach, and parent when injuries affect training and practice time, particularly at crucial moments in a season.
For many years the common accepted situation was that an athlete was either fully fit and therefore in full training and competition or injured and subsequently completing rehabilitation. With advances in Strength and Conditioning and all forms of athlete screening it is a norm now in high level sport that athletes should be completing an ongoing Injury Prevention (IP) or Pre-Hab programme.
Essentially the justification for this is two-fold. Firstly, why wait for injury before completing remedial exercises which build function and postural balance which add to overall performance. Secondly all Strength and Conditioning training is in effect injury prevention work as it is preparing the athlete’s body to be able to cope with the rigours of hard training and competition.
Clearly it is easy to ‘package’ and understand injury prevention exercises in the format of body weight, ‘core’ and ‘band’ exercises as these are often the earlier stages of a Strength and Conditioning programme where asymmetries, stability, control, and mobility weaknesses are identified and improved to allow for an athlete to be ‘structurally’ safe to progress. Importantly most elite athletes will have an ongoing range of tailor prescribed IP exercises which they complete daily alongside their other physical training elements.

Finding A Strength and Conditioning Coach:
This can be a pretty difficult process for the simple reason that the ‘Fitness Industry’ around the world is a very large and broad one with many different types and levels of practitioners and professionals operating within it. There are a range of ‘qualifications’ available and a relatively poor regulation of the level of coaches in the marketplace worldwide.
There are varying views on types of training and strategies that should be utilised for developing athletes and there are also several practitioners with expertise in other areas who present themselves as strength and conditioning coaches, when in fact they maybe more expert as personal trainers, massage therapists. However, clearly some strength and conditioning coaches do have rehabilitation backgrounds and broad ranges of skills so there is ‘no one criteria fits – all’ solution.
In addition, finding a strength and conditioning coach with a track record of success with developing athletes is again hard to identify as it is a relatively a new area of development.
It would not be fair to say what constitutes an excellent practitioner from a poor one, as clearly it is not as straight forward as making distinctions based on a practitioner’s level of qualifications alone, as clearly there are many very qualified people with poor practical coaching skills, and low levels of experience which is a critical factor. However, there are also people who display very strong coaching abilities in terms of delivery who do not have the qualifications. This type of coach can be very effective at injuring your athlete, we advise you do not recruit S & Coaches that fall within this category.

Nutrition:
After natural talent and hard work, the diet is the next most important aspect for an athlete. Here, at The Hub we provide structured, easy to use advice, focused on healthy eating, sports nutrition, hydration and supplements.
The content is tailored to specific stages of development and athlete age. It is designed to ensure that the information presented is easily digestible by the athlete, coach, and parent, providing useful nutritional advice and tips, ultimately all leading to well-designed meal plans for the athletes.
It will include the following:
- What is a healthy diet?
- Identifying different food groups
- The role of hydration and ideal fluids for sport
- How to evaluate your own food intake and make informed upgrades
- Optimal food choices before, during and after exercise
- When, if ever, are supplements useful?
The Hub training, support and education is delivered from multiple sites, by The Hub team of experts.