Preparing for the World Cup means preparing for some of the most unique demands in sport. In this multi-part series I’m breaking down each one in detail, starting with an article on preparing for heat and humidity that could influence performance at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This article looks at another environmental factor: altitude.
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Every four years, the men’s FIFA World Cup takes over the world of sport. Football (I can’t quite bring myself to call it soccer) is probably the closest thing we have to a genuinely universal sport, with cheap equipment, simple rules, the ability to play almost anywhere. It is culturally embedded across Europe, Africa, and South America, with growing popularity in the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, and North America. Football truly is a global sport, with an estimated 270 million people involved in organised versions of the game, and many more playing in parks and streets across the globe.
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Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In this month’s edition we look at a new case study on the New Zealand All Black’s motivational culture, how to support non-responders in training, operationalizing deliberate practice, and much more.
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Ask me 10 years ago about the key to successful coaching and it was all about individualization. Ask me now, and I think most coaches individualize too much. Maybe I’m just getting set in my ways, but the longer I coach the more I see individualization as simply the icing on the cake. It’s nice to have and can make all the difference, but the true substance is the program underneath it.
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To paraphrase Kelvin Giles, ‘If your coach: athlete ratio is 1:25 then you are managing a crowd, not coaching.’ Some coaches can only dream of that ratio because they regularly manage groups of 40 or 50 people in a session. Coaching large groups presents unique problems. For example, individualization may seem impossible and we have to hope that everyone gets some improvement.
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Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In this month’s edition we look at the newest frontiers in sport science, the link between energy intake and adaptations, and much more.
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The site theme in February was microdosing. We took an in depth look at how small bouts of training can add up to produce big results. Throughout the month we put together 7 new articles, 2 podcasts, and 1 new video from 10 contributors with ideas on how to use this approach in different scenarios. Below we have links to all our new and archived content on microdosing.
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Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. To kick of 2021 we’ve put together one of our biggest editions yet, reviewing 12 new articles on a range of topics from a critique of data-driven coaching, repeatability of training improvements, caffeine periodization, crowd wisdom, and what coaches can learn from hunter gatherers.
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The site theme in October is rethinking periodization, culminating in this week’s GAIN Master Class event on the topic hosted by Vern and Martin. Below are even more new resources on the topic that we published throughout the month, including the topic content from our articles on periodization. Read more
Athletes are generally under large amounts of strain. This can be physical in nature, such as the strain produced both by a single training session, or the accumulated strain of a number of training sessions within a training block. More recently, we’ve started to understand that strain can also be non-physiological in nature, with a link between increased stress and under-performance becoming more established. New research helps us further understand the connection. Read more
