By John Portch

Working with England’s World Cup-winning Red Roses transformed John Mitchell as a coach, long before last weekend’s 33-13 defeat of Canada in the final.

“Most of my career has been in the men’s game,” he said in the aftermath. “It was the only reference I ever had. To get the opportunity to coach these girls you have got to observe and listen and find ways to make them tick.”

The bonds they have forged during his two-year tenure will last a lifetime. “To be associated with these girls, they are driven, they have changed my life, changed the way I think as well. All of those sorts of things are added bonuses. A trophy is one thing, a medal is another thing but actually the quality of the people you work with is the ultimate.”

Mitchell’s sentiments were reflected across several of the conversations we hosted for members of the Leaders Performance Institute in September, from coaching female athletes to a coach’s ability to adapt to their changing environment.

Here are some of the choicest cuts.

Performance anxiety or body anxiety?

Last month, we shone light on Rachel Vickery’s appearance onstage at the Women’s Sport Breakfast at our Sport Performance Summit in Philadelphia. Vickery, a high-performance specialist and former artistic gymnast, recounted a recurring issue from her time working as a physio. Young female athletes would occasionally be sent to her with what was assumed to be exercise-induced asthma. It turned out their breathing difficulties were often anxiety-induced.

“You could see the look of relief on their faces when I started talking about body image, self-esteem and self-worth,” she continued. “So I started a seminar series in 2008 for female athletes and their parents called Growing Up in Lycra around body image identity.”

The seminars were picked up by Swimming Queensland. “I project managed the transformation of these seminars into an education DVD resource that was sent to all female athletes, parents and coaches State-wide.” It was later turned into a national resource by Swimming Australia. “We got some former Olympians involved and that resource went to all of our female athletes, their coaches and their parents. That resource is still used today.”

The role of AI in learning

Vickery was back at the helm for a Leaders Virtual Roundtable discussing how Leaders Performance Institute members can make learning more effective within their teams.

AI was high on the agenda. “AI should be used to support the growth and creativity of staff as opposed to being used for shortcuts where people become lazy,” said one coach developer.

Overreliance on AI, as this coach pointed out above, can stifle creativity. The table also suggested a series of shortcomings in current generations of AI:

• The difficulty of transcribing and analysing multi-speaker environments where current AI tools struggle with accuracy.
• Intellectual property protection and choosing appropriate platforms for specific tasks.
• The inherent biases in AI-generated results.

The table then highlighted some potential solutions:

• Establish clear parameters, regardless of what platform you use. This is fundamental to a good outcome.
• Crosscheck across two or more platforms. “Take that conversation and throw it into another AI tool – you are now responsible for creating that intellectual tension,” as one coach said.
• Ask the AI engine to provide three to five counterarguments. Don’t accept the first answer at face value.
• Ask the AI engine to keep track of patterns over time. “This,” as one coach put it, “eliminates a lot of the fluff”.

Are you an adaptive leader? You’ll need these four skills…

Tim Cox, the Director & Lead for High Performance Research at Management Futures, led a Skills Sprint Session virtual roundtable for Leaders Performance Institute members on the topic of adaptability.

It is a skill, as Cox explained, that was highly coveted by the coaches and practitioners who contributed to our Trend Report earlier this year.

Not that this is anything new. “It is well known that Charles Darwin did not talk about ‘the survival of the fittest’,” Cox continued, with reference to Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of the Species.

“The endpoint of Darwin’s research was that it’s not the strongest or the most intelligent of the species that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Over the course of 25 minutes, Cox discussed traps that people can fall victim to in pursuit of better adaptability. He also brought into focus the qualities of adaptive leaders and the skills that can aid adaptation.

Cox discussed four skills:

1. They spot the need for change

“It is important to actually spot the need for change and not just continue doing what you’re doing.”

2. They are the grandmasters of their response.

“This speaks to calmness but it also speaks to the strategic element and scanning ahead in terms of the decisions that might need to be taken.”

3. They empower people to contribute to the adaptation response.

“This is about understanding ideas from both within and outside the team.”

4. They are adept at leading the change

“This is often where adaptation fails. It’s one thing to spot the change, it’s another to decide your response and empower people to put their mark on it.”

Read more about the qualities of adaptive leaders here.

‘Sports psychologists cannot just sit and wait for work to come in the door’

Darren Devaney, the Lead Performance Psychologist at Ulster Rugby, and Daniel Ransom, the Head of Psychology and Performance Lifestyle at the Manchester United Academy, co-hosted a virtual roundtable exploring how teams can better use psychology.

They discussed three requisite qualities in depth:

1. Zooming in and out

According to Devaney, the psychologist must “get away from the assumption that we work with the individual athlete only”. Instead, they should ask themselves “is my intervention best targeted at an individual or is this more systemic? And if I’m going to be here for the next five or six years, what’s the most useful way of spending one or two hours on this? Is it working with a head coach? Is it working with all the staff? Is it working with a group of players, or is it the one-to-one with the athlete?”

2. Vertical and horizontal influencing skills

Psychology is not just the work of the psychologist. “An hour spent with one individual athlete is very well spent,” said Devaney, “but an hour spent with somebody that upskills or shapes them”, such as a coach, brings your work into “exponential territory”. He continued: “it changes how they do their work with 20 or 25 people over the course of the week”.

Ransom added: “If we really want to embed and integrate psychology what we require is other people to take on our ideas and work in ways that are psychologically-informed.”

3. Skilful proactivity

“We can’t sit still and wait for work to walk in the door,” said Devaney. “I’ve often reflected that this organisation functioned for decades without me in the building, so if I’m not here, this place can keep going. I need to recognise the fact that it might not be every day the main thing that everybody’s thinking about, so how can I do that in a way that doesn’t produce scepticism or kickback?” Nevertheless, “you must be proactive in trying to have an impact.”

Ransom has advice for anyone encountering scepticism. “If people are ready for more in-depth and focused work, then let’s meet them there. If they’re not, and they’re at that sceptical end, how do we try and offer them something which is appropriate to the needs of what they might be open to? If we pitch that wrong and we try and go too hard or move too quickly with those people, I think you can get caught in a potential tug of war where we don’t really make much progress and people hold their position.” With skilful guidance, people can “see the value that other people have, and that can be a way of opening a few windows and doors to them.”

Find out more here.

By John Portch

John Crawley explains that athletes have turned away from their sport because they have been left burnt out from 24-7 attention.

Whether it’s high performance or data-related (or even the regular anti-doping tests), it can be intrusive and dehumanising.

“While I appreciate the opportunity for data to inform decision making, I also think we have to be really careful about too much information clouding our judgement, too much information getting in the way of relationships, and too much information turning into surveillance that turns athletes away from sport itself,” says Crawley, the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s High Performance Director for team sports.

“We’ve lost athletes because of that,” he continues. “Let’s be honest here: there are athletes who have said ‘once this is over with I want to have my life back’.”

Such micromanagement would not be tolerated in other fields, he believes, and no athlete wants to feel like “a pin cushion that is being monitored 24 hours a day; and if anything is perceived to be off or not optimised then something is wrong and there needs to be an intervention.

“I think we have to be really careful about that.”

Crawley was a contributor to our Teamworks Special Report earlier this year and candidly shares his thoughts on the consequences of the growing sophistication and complexity of high performance environments.

“While increasingly specialised areas of service and support present a challenge, there is also an opportunity to be more reflective and critical around how and why things are evolving the way they are,” he says.

“We want to get back to what these systems were designed to do, making sure that they are operating in the most effective manner possible without becoming overly burdensome, intrusive, or otherwise counterproductive.”

Here, Crawley reflects on how the high performance system may get there.

Coaching, connecting and caring

Crawley recalls a conversation with a friend who happens to be a serial-winning US coach. That coach had three focuses for the LA cycle, telling Crawley ‘I want to focus on coaching, connecting and caring.’

“Coaches have the ability to cut right to the heart of it,” says Crawley.

Don’t always add – try to take away

Crawley remains open-minded to new ideas and approaches but in some respects his approach has evolved from where it might have been 20 years ago. He’s gone from routinely exploring where he can add services or modalities, to asking the opposite. “Are there things that we don’t need to be doing anymore that are getting in the way? Are there things that are counterproductive to ultimately what we’re trying to do? Are there things that are too invasive? Are we getting away from connection between the provider and the athlete and are we now operating more through a filter of some kind of technological gadget?” he says.

“I’m asking more critical questions to get to the heart of why things are being done, their impact, and ensuring we are being supportive and not being overly prescriptive or dehumanising those interactions in any way.”

How does the athlete experience us?

Crawley is also wary of the myriad voices an athlete will hear each day. He says: “When we think about design and implementation, one of the things that’s really important for us to understand is how does the athlete experience this? How many different voices are they hearing and how many different perspectives are they getting? How can we think with the end in mind and bring that back to how we operate as a team?”

It becomes a question of wellbeing. “Unless their personal lives are supported as well – mental capabilities, emotional support, educational desires, professional desires, career aspirations, etcetera – I don’t think the athletes would be in the best position to really aspire towards their ultimate athletic aspirations.”

Surveillance versus support

Crawley stresses that he is not a Luddite but, when using tech, he says: “we have to be mindful of moving into a space of surveillance versus a space of support and there needs to be a strong distinction made between the two.”

The tech must prove to be a demonstrable asset. “I think there is real value in what we’re doing but I also want to have a sober assessment of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it and, going back to what that coach said, I want to be able to coach with my full capability, I want to be able to connect to the individuals, the human being, and I want to be able to care for them and myself. How can I best go about doing that? What’s going to pull me in that direction and what’s going to push me away?”

What to read next

Your Team Is Probably Not as Aligned as you Think, But you Can Get Better at it

By John Portch

The reality of being available to everyone 24-7 is spelled out by a coach from Australia.

“I have a relentless stream of calls and messages,” she said. “It’s hard to sleep when your phone is on all night.”

The system may recognise the need to look after staff wellbeing but “the reality is that organisations might not understand the challenges staff face on the ground at camps and tours.”

The challenges are systemic and cultural, as Leaders Performance Institute members continually pointed out during a recent Virtual Roundtable on the creation of healthy environments in sport.

“Regardless of what you have written down on a piece of paper, the culture is that you know everyone is there all the time pushing for performance, because that’s what’s required when you’re at the top end of things,” said a sports scientist working in Canada.

“How do you chip away at that over time and shift people’s perspective to this idea that ‘I’m actually a detriment to my team when I show up not at my best, so out of respect for my teammates, I need to make sure I’m ready to be here’?”

The group put their finger on five enduring challenges and, while there’s no perfect solution in a world where the ‘martyr mindset’ still holds sway, five ways to better support coaches and staff.

Challenge #1: The typical focus on the athlete often comes at the expense of the coach

Athlete wellbeing is considered paramount. While understandable, but it can too often come at the expense of coaches and other staff.

“We’ve had athlete wellbeing and engagement in place for more than ten years. We still don’t have coach wellbeing and engagement in place at all.”

Response: Find space for coach and staff wellbeing in your strategy

You may face budgetary constraints and cultural reticence, but you can’t take away the stigma attached to asking for help without providing wellbeing services.

It can be as simple as baking wellbeing-based KPIs into your performance reviews, as is the case in the Australian system courtesy of its High Performance 2032+ Sport Strategy.

The Australian system also provides coaches and staff with access to the Australian Institute of Sport’s mental health referral network.

Challenge #2: Coaches don’t always want or seek help

The aforementioned ‘martyr’s mindset’ often makes coaches instinctively reluctant to seek help.

“We do offer our coaches mental health support. Very few of them take advantage of it. It speaks to the challenge of what are the things that are going to make a difference.”

Response: Encourage coaches and staff to develop work friendships

There’s no silver bullet, but it helps to talk. “One of the highest predictors of employee satisfaction is if that person has a best friend at work,” said a wellness director from the US. “You want a culture that encourages relationships to be formed organically.”

Challenge #3: Presenteeism

All coaches need an extended break from time to time. As one attendee said, “it’s about creating environments where it’s safe to take leave. So you feel relaxed when you’re on leave. Not like, ‘shit, things are falling apart”.

“Too often the culture makes coaches think ‘If I’m not here, then I’m not seen to be fully committed.’”

Response: Paint presenteeism as irresponsible

Stepping back is often the responsible thing to do. “Respect your team and don’t be selfish by turning up,” said a performance coach from New Zealand.

It can also help to arrange staff cover when people are taking a break. “We spend a lot of time setting up partnerships that allow performance support staff to be backfilled and allow them to have time off when they’ve been away at world championships,” said a performance director from Australia, although they also admitted it can be harder to cover for coaches.

Challenge #4: Risk-based approaches to wellbeing have made us reactive, not proactive

The volume of high-profile duty of care failures in sport has led to a risk-based, reactive approach to wellbeing. Teams too often wait for things to go wrong but, as a wellbeing manager from Australia said, “compliance should be the bare minimum”.

“Unfortunately, it’s an easier conversation with your board when you’re talking about risk rather than the potential opportunity or the performance-enabling aspect.”

Response: Take a more personalised approach

“We’re starting to have more individualised conversations with people,” said the Canadian sports scientist.

“We want to get into the habit of doing things a little bit differently and recognise that you can’t show up at your best 24-7.” The question they seek to ask is: “What stress do we need to take off of you in order for you to feel like you’re at your best?”

Challenge #5: Too much focus on technical expertise

An old trope that needs little explaining.

“Our practitioner education system is about your ability to deliver your expertise and communicate technical things well. Your role in supporting wellbeing, or even looking after your own wellbeing, isn’t really covered at all.”

Response: Demonstrate that wellbeing and performance are indivisible

It sounds obvious when someone from within the system spells it out. “Ultimately we are human, and if our wellbeing is going well, we’re much more likely to perform when we’re creating those environments,” said the Australian wellbeing manager.

It should be integral to coach development programmes and role modelled by leaders.

“I try to model taking time off when I’m feeling tired, admitting, ‘OK, I just need a personal day, guys, I’m just feeling a bit rough’,” said a wellness manager from the US system.

There is also a tacit acknowledgement of this link between wellbeing and performance from even the most resistant head coaches.

“If we challenged the culture by working with assistant coaches, hopefully creating the next generation of head coaches that are willing to prioritise their wellbeing, then the assistant coaches were viewed as the threat,” said a US college-based performance coach.

It is important to encourage wellbeing for all.

What to read next

When it Comes to Learning, the Coach Must Create the Right Environment, But the Athlete Must Want to Step into it

By Rachel Woodland

Given the recent increase in women choosing to not delay having a family, and the subsequent increase in athletes competing during and after pregnancy, sport systems need to adapt in support of this growing demographic.

Our recent Women’s High Performance Sport Community call featured the UK Sports Institute sharing how organisations can better support athletes returning to performance postpartum.

We were delighted to be joined by:

• Esme Matthew, the Head of Physiology at the UKSI
• Dr Kate Hutchings, a Sports Medicine Doctor working with the UKSI’s leading clinical services for all world-class-funded Olympic and Paralympic athletes
• Dr Richard Burden, who leads the Female Athlete Performance Programme at the UKSI

The conversation focused on the structures UKSI have put in place to support athletes, including the role multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) have, which practices are having a positive impact on athletes, and what was learnt in the most recent Games cycle.

Six core themes emerged around what is involved in guiding an athlete successfully through pregnancy and their postpartum return. We also discussed what can be done where resources are limited.

1. Preparation and planning are crucial

The timing of when an athlete chooses to inform their coach and support team of their pregnancy will vary, but having conversations as early as possible during pregnancy is essential to map out return-to-performance plans. It’s advised that athletes establish support networks and define expectations with their teams before delivery. This could include what they expect in terms of communication from their coach, when they’re hoping to train, and how they’d like to stay connected to their sport or team. The panel recommended putting this in contract form and falling back on the initial discussion when necessary.

In their experiences, Matthew and Hutchings have found that Performance Lifestyle Advisors play a pivotal role in helping athletes navigate logistics like childcare, breastfeeding, and travel. It might also be that the Performance Lifestyle Advisor is the team member the athlete lets know first of their  plans to have a child, and signposted the athlete to the resources offered by the Female Athlete Performance Programme.

Deciding what will be monitored before giving birth will help with this planning process and ensure shared expectations postpartum. The monitoring plan will also help shape MDT support. More on each to come.

2. Multidisciplinary support teams

It won’t surprise you to hear that effective return requires collaboration between many people, including but not limited to:

• Doctors (such as Hutchings)
• Physiologists (such as Matthew)
• Nutritionists
• Pelvic health physiotherapists
• Mental health professionals

That being said, the athlete must be central to all decisions, with support teams adapting to their evolving needs. It also won’t surprise you that no athlete return is the same as any other, even if it isn’t the athlete’s first child. Ultimately it comes down to who they trust to help them make decisions. Even if the goal is to have the athlete make final decisions, they’ll seek input and guidance along the way.

A key learning from more recent years has come from athletes wanting to test and push the boundaries of what’s possible when pregnant. For Matthew and Hutchings, the health and wellbeing of the athlete and baby are the first priority. But athletes are not used to that being a default mindset. It’s not that they don’t care about their own wellbeing or the wellbeing of their baby, but they are used to continuously thinking about how they are going to be better athletes. How can they return faster? How can they get themselves in the best possible shape pre-delivery so that their postpartum period is as easy as possible. Alongside this, MDTs will need to come together to help support an athlete through some really difficult questions. For example, ‘can I go on this training camp in warm weather?’, ‘can I still compete at this week of my pregnancy?’ or ‘can I still do  my sport?’ The reality is that you are not going to find an answer to these questions in a research article.

A further reality is that these questions will always be asked, and that a standard FAQ section won’t suffice. Instead, the duo recommend talking through the risk.

Typical questions:

• What’s the risk of falling?
• What’s the risk of impact?
• How far along in your pregnancy are you?
• What risk are you willing to take?

The aim is to have the athlete answer these question for themselves. The MDT needs to be able to provide guidelines for athletes to be able to consider that for themselves, given that some examples, such as ‘can I go on this training camp to Australia, where we know it’s going to be really hot?’ and ‘can I still do a competition while it’s still really hot if I feel OK?’ can’t be answered ahead of time. They have to be able to answer it on the day given how many factors might change. But we should be educating them in how to make that decision.

One way to approach this is to talk through the theory with the athlete. With the heat example, that’s explaining blood flow and where else blood will be directed beyond the placenta. If they understand the theory of it, it can make it easier for them to make decisions for themselves.

Beyond this, a couple of things to definitely avoid were shared too:

1. Anaerobic exercise.
2. No supine exercise later on in pregnancy.
3. No lying on your stomach during exercise.
4. Towards the end of pregnancy, although still up to the athlete, avoid any risk of falling. For example, avoiding contact sport.

The UKSI are also really clear with the athletes that they don’t provide any sort of obstetric support. So they’re not there to be midwives or health visitors.

Then there are additional considerations to think of for who might be part of the athlete’s support team. For example, Hutchings is working with a Paralympian and she had to leave a meeting because she was going to a session where her hearing dog was going to be trained to listen for a newborn baby’s cry. There are situations where the planning for post-natal is even more considered.

Involving a partner can also be an excellent addition to support teams. It gives them more information for when the athlete needs them to fight the traditional athlete mentality to push through. There can also be a discussion about how hard this transition might be and that the athlete is going to need support through their decision making. It can provide another check and challenge for them when questioning if they really need to push that hard today or offer observations such as ‘I can see you feel really tired. Why don’t you just have a day off?’ It’s not an athlete’s mindset. Their mindset is more likely ‘I feel a bit off, but I’m going to carry on anyway’. Matthew shared that, “having someone that’s there with them on a day-to-day that can really help with that has been really useful”.

It’s also important to train staff. Matthew added that ahead of the Paris cycle, the learning module for staff across the UKSI was rewritten. Para athlete support was interwoven across the module rather than being a separate section, as it had been previously.

On the call, we also spoke about any instances where an athlete might prefer to talk to Matthew or Hutchings about her pregnancy, rather than her MDT in her sport and her coach, and everything that goes with it. Both have found this to be quite rare. If it has happened it’s normally been where they are the only female support they have, or when the team haven’t known about the pregnancy yet. In response to this,  they’d focus on brining  everyone together to be aligned with the initial message to the athlete being a reminder that Matthew and Hutchings are there as an extra layer of support for both the athlete and their support team within the sport. This is usually followed up with an MDT webinar. This would cover what their training and pregnancy would look like. Talking through training plans postpartum with all of their support team with the athlete in the room. Typically this gels and brings everyone together.

Matthew and Hutchings were quick to point out that some of the best examples of support teams have been all male apart from themselves. They’ve been incredibly understanding, and couldn’t do enough for the athletes. It’s just trying to bring everyone together and get them on the same page.

The other time this can happen is before an athlete is pregnant, but they would like to talk about what training might look like during pregnancy or what return  timelines might look like for them in their sport, and they might not want to talk to the sport about it yet because they don’t feel comfortable.

So Matthew and Hutchings would always encourage them to tell their sport as early as possible, but it does at least give like a bit of a safety net for that.

3. Pelvic health as a game changer

When asked around practices that have a positive impact on athlete return postpartum, pelvic floor education and support before and after birth was repeatedly described as transformative for any female athlete, given its impact on incontinence and strength training.

From research around the Commonwealth Games in 2022 one in five athletes reported urinary incontinence. They were planning for adapting to this through kit changes or fluid restrictions. The stats for urinary incontinence postpartum, regardless of mode of delivery, is at one in three athletes; and faecal incontinence is one in 10. “It’s such an important area for us to get right and that’s why we always work very closely with pelvic health physios,” said Hutchings. “If you keep up and do all your pelvic floor exercises, if you’ve got good pelvic health antenatally, you reduce your risk of urinary incontinence by 40 per cent postpartum, regardless of the method  delivery.”

Athletes are encouraged to use tools like the NHS Squeezy app and see a pelvic health specialist pre- and postnatally if something bespoke is needed.

As a group we also discussed being careful with the interrelatedness of symptoms of pelvic floor weaknesses and REDs. With it being important to stay diligent around REDs given changes to nutritional needs, if breastfeeding; plus changes in bone density linked to giving birth. All with the added complexity that athletes remain on the register for drugs testing in their sports and will need to be sensible with supplements.

4. Individualised return plans

Given that no two athletes’ journeys are the same. Plans must be flexible and responsive to daily changes in health and energy. Monitoring will play an important role here, with the likes of readiness scores, subjective wellness, sub-max testing guiding training and return.

It’s important to have awareness about each athlete’s training environment. Especially as each athlete will stop full training at different stages antenatally for a variety of reasons. That could also impact when they reengage postpartum too. This awareness, allied to open communication, is even more important if they’re the only pregnant athlete in a squad or sport.

This is important for thinking about athletes feeling disconnected, and how we can continue to keep them in the same spaces as other athletes, but with a different programme, for example in the gym, or continuing to attend squad meetings, even if they’re not training at the same capacity.

As mentioned earlier, having some really clear markers as part of an athlete’s individualised plan is also helpful. This would include discussing what you would like to measure postpartum before you get there. This can useful for the coach too. Matthew and Hutchings also always work hard on helping the athlete connect with detraining while accepting that some of the markers that they would keep track of normally are going to go down. There are also conversations about things like blood volume and endurance levels. For example, some endurance athletes will panic about losing fitness and when these conversations happen, Matthew and Hutchings talk about the physiological principles that sit around pregnancy that actually support a maintenance of economy and supporting systems. So having those markers lets the athlete and MDT talk through the pregnancy, what are you expecting to see, and managing those expectations and then, postpartum, what would you look to be monitoring when you come back and when would you look to do that?

An example where this work well, is in rowing and Jack Brown’s work with Olympic double sculls bronze medallist Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne. They included clear physiological markers and sub-max testing to guide return. Together they put some good markers in place around sub-max testing to look at economy. They had some clear markers in the sand that the sport wanted the athlete to meet but did some nice monitoring around that. This included morning monitoring, which is quite tricky to get done when the athlete is having to get up and look after her child. Her first thought is to talk about what can work and potential practical solutions that you can look at. It could be that starting with just a readiness score for training for the day can be tracked and then over time you can start to build others back in. For example, resting heart rate in the morning when that feels really important, say, six months postpartum.

We discussed options to support training, including blood flow restriction. However, there are other things that can be done that are just really sound training principles around muscle hypertrophy postpartum that could be harder to implement than previously; therefore focus could be on those first. It could be as basic as doing good training and recovery. It can be quite difficult for athletes to do the training postpartum when they’ve got so much going on, like getting to training, being able to take the time out to do it, finding childcare, sorting all of their nutrition. So that’s a really big focus for the UKSI postpartum, the planning and organisation. With nutrition, this might be have you got something in the car that you can eat on the way home? Because once you get home the baby is back to you and you’re in full-on Mum mode.

Further, if an athlete or coach wants to use methods such as BFR because they want to accelerate their return, it’s known that from a pelvic floor point of view the UKSI doesn’t get people running much before 12 weeks anyway. Thus, you could accelerate other areas such as muscle development, but it’s the pelvic floor that you want to engage. And that takes time.

5. Mental health and identity

Both Matthew and Hutchings advocate for mental health support, and work with a psychologist for pregnant and postpartum athletes. The change they face is vast, likely moving from a very regimented and structured training life to one full of unpredictability and many unknowns and firsts. There can be a struggle with the dual identity of being a new mother and an elite performer. As Hutchings said: “I think that’s really important for us to recognise and have those conversations and then feeling comfortable to say to their team. Actually, I don’t feel all right today or I’m a bit tearful, I’m struggling or I don’t feel like I fit in.”

It’s important for the MDT to recognise that an athlete might feel disconnected as they return to their sporting environment. They might be the first (or only current) athlete to be pregnant.

6. Peer support and mentorship

A simple support mechanism has been the creation of a WhatsApp group for pregnant and postpartum athletes to foster peer mentorship and shared learning. This informal network has been highly valued for emotional support and practical advice.

What about those with fewer resources?

Smaller sports often lack in-house expertise. UKSI fills this gap by offering bespoke support and education.

• Practitioners are encouraged to upskill using resources like:
  • IOC Pregnancy Guidelines
  • 6R Framework (Gráinne Donnelly)
  • Greg Whyte’s Bump It Up

How might you take advantage of the UKSI’s experiences in athlete return postpartum?

• If you’re in the GB Paralympic and Olympic system your sport can utilise the UKSI Female Athlete Performance Team through Dr Kate Hutchings.
• If you have research and innovation questions, and you’re in a position to do so, (Paralympic, Olympic or professional sport), you could work with the Centre of Excellence for Women in Sport, which the UKSI collaborate with alongside Manchester Metropolitan University through Dr Richard Burden.

By Ethan Joyce

Athlete mental wellness continues to gain traction, both in the guidelines being established by leagues/governing bodies (such as the NFL and NBA efforts at the dawn of the decade) and the companies pitching in to support schools and franchises, as seen with  Peak Ai.

Outside of just being the right thing to do, there’s a straight line from holistic support of athletes and business success. Wellbeing begats better performance, which begats results, greater fan interest and, ultimately, a product fans will pay for.

Last year, the NCAA released the latest version of its mental health best practices, outlining obligations for all member schools (regardless of division) to create a healthy environment for athletes. Components of that plan included support via resources and connections to mental health professionals, as well as a screening tool to monitor athlete wellness.

The NCAA required D-I members to provide this by last August. And this November will be the first deadline for schools to prove they’re doing so. With that mile-marker approaching, The Zone is gearing up to test a new feature in its athlete wellness platform: the Mental Readiness Score. The metric will provide insight into an athlete’s mental state.

Knowing the score

In a walkthrough with SBJ, The Zone CEO and Co-Founder Ivan Tchatchouwo showed a series of check-in questions that help create the score. Prompts focused on physical essentials like hydration and sleep but also considered ratings for categories such as confidence and energy level. The quick series produces a score (scaled from 0-100) that a coach can see for each player, while the individual student view will show tiered descriptors (such as ‘Fully Ready’ or ‘Needs Attention’) to take away the pressure of potentially seeing a poor numerical score.

Tchatchouwo said the feature, which The Zone will pilot with select schools as part of its premium platform offering before a future rollout, came as an idea from numerous conversations on different campuses since the company was founded in 2021.

The Zone has a client base of roughly 200 teams at various levels of the NCAA, offering three tiers of its platform: basic, premium and enterprise.

“The biggest thing, and we’re seeing this in all sets of industries and technology in college sports, is how do you harmonize this data to drive value for the athlete but also to drive value for the administration?” Tchatchouwo said.

Coaches will be able to see Mental Readiness Scores for each athlete and a collective score for a team, allowing for responses at the individual and group levels in their teaching and preparation. The Zone’s athlete experience also offers support via breathing and visualization exercises that cater to the user’s preference.

One of The Zone’s biggest triumphs of 2024 came through validation from its own data and research. Tchatchouwo said that athletes who used The Zone 15 times saw their moods “significantly” improve, and that was especially true for women who used The Zone’s platforms. He also added that client schools see up to 3X more access to their athletes via The Zone platform, meaning an increased understanding in what their athletes are collectively experiencing on the mental side.

“What we’re seeing is the athletes that are stigmatized, that don’t talk about it, are getting help from The Zone,” Tchatchouwo said.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

By John Portch

The lack of useful data in women’s sport is an enduring problem, but the England & Wales Cricket Board hope its Insight 360 project will be a game-changer.

Insight 360 is a data-driven approach to performance management and athlete monitoring. It was launched in February 2024 by the ECB in collaboration with Ascent, their digital services provider, and includes an app for players (to view their data), a dashboard for practitioners (to view data across the board), and a portal that practitioners can use to input data.

“When you see the little research that’s out there, you’ve not got much to hang your hat on,” said Anna Warren, the Head of England Women’s Science & Medicine, at November’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London. “We’re using this platform to better understand in depth the female cricketer; what they look like from the academy through to the international cricketer.”

The rollout has been a success and, as the ECB launches phase two (the wider introduction of injury data and more sophisticated use of match data), we highlight the factors that led to its sport-wide take up.

It reflects the concerns of players

Insight 360, as the name suggests, represents a holistic approach to collating athlete data. There is a focus on availability and performance, but there is also a focus their health, home life, and career progression. “Players come to us and discuss their issues quite openly,” said Dr Tham Wedatilake, the Lead Physician for England Women’s Cricket, who joined Warren onstage to discuss the project. “They want to perform without any barriers.”

It is a co-designed platform

Ahead of the launch, the ECB gathered input from practitioners and coaches across the English game. “This means Insight 360 is bespoke for women’s cricket,” said Warren.  Players, she said, are happy with an app that allows them to review their own data in as much detail as they like. “This is good for player buy-in, which is always a challenge in relation to athlete monitoring.”

There is also the power of a co-designed project. UK Sports Institute have found as much with their Project Minerva. Dr Richard Burden, the UKSI’s Co-Head of Female Athlete Health & Performance, said: “Get the practitioners involved, get athletes, get the teams and bring them along with it because if they’re onboard you get easier access to them and you’re going to produce something that’s more translatable, meaningful and applicable to them.”

Warren is on the same page with Insight 360. “You can link loads of different data sources together and start to answer some key performance questions – we’re not looking at everything in isolation.”

It provides a single source of truth

Collaboration can be easier said than done. “When you have so many people pull data together it becomes almost impossible for the human brain to comprehend and then deliver effective, unbiased solutions to players’ needs and expectations,” said Wedatilake.

Insight 360 is the single reference point and it provides continuity. “As soon as one person leaves and another is working with the players, that record gets lost,” said Warren. “We’re really trying to create a joined-up system.”

It is future-proof

Wedatilake explained that Insight 360, as part of its next phase, will include injury data. He said: “It will be a game-changer for us in terms of load and injury risk and other factors such as the menstrual cycle and wellness.” The platform is primed to integrate future sources of data.

He does, however, also temper his excitement with a note of caution. “We didn’t want to get greedy too early,” he added. It was critical to have the right structure and means of integration before adding different elements, whether they are rooted in stats or video.

One of the next steps is further automation, particularly with regards to match data. “That’s the beauty of this system,” said Warren. “It’s so much quicker for people.”

She and Wedatilake wrapped up their presentation by setting out their ambitions for Insight 360:

Photo: Lasso Safe

By Joe Lemire

Lasso Safe, makers of AI-powered software to help protect athlete wellness, has partnered with Players Health to help sports organizations assess risk and better care for its members.

Founded by a pair of retired professional athletes — endurance cyclist Pamela Minix and figure skater Luis Hernández — Lasso Safe has developed an evidence-based, research-validated survey and software to detect potentially toxic environments and unsafe relationships.

Players Health, a sports insurance group that recently raised a $60 million Series C round, will use it to “create safer, more supportive environments that lead to both healthier athletes and more sustainable businesses,” said Kyle Lubrano, Chief Mission Delivery Officer of Players Health.

Minix said Lasso Safe completed validation of its most updated product in October and described it as “a machine learning software that recognizes athletes’ experiences — specifically the areas are mental, emotional, physical and social wellbeing. We recognize them on spectrum from healthy, happy experiences to harmful and even abusive experiences.”

Lasso Safe described the product as “a machine learning software that recognizes athletes’ experiences — specifically the areas are mental, emotional, physical and social wellbeing.” Image: Lasso Safe

It was originally developed for national governing bodies that serve Olympic sports but has been modified for age groups as young as elementary school. Minix noted the increasing pressures at the youth level, in part because of growing expectations from the coaches and the growing financial investment in the space.

“Any level can experience this, not just highly competitive levels, so we focus on youth, but we do all age groups,” Minix said. “The software is designed to recognize even the first step away from that, when maybe those pressures start to come up or any type of misconduct within those wellness pillars.”

The frequency of surveys is at the discretion of each organization. Minix noted that Players Health will typically require them at least once during an application process to the platform, but many groups will administer them periodically or after incidents.

Questions asked of athletes include whether they feel valued by the coach, whether they have adequate access to nutrition and hydration during training sessions and more. Surveys can take anywhere from five to 15 minutes to complete.

Minix said Lasso Safe has run pilots with about 50 universities in the past five years, led by Utah State and Victoria University in Australia. The first adopter of the latest software is Globocol, a case management company based in the UK that offers services for sporting integrity, DEI, health and safety and data governance, among other uses.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

A Human Performance article brought to you by our Main Partners

By John Portch

Guilt often rears its head when thoughts turn to wellbeing and, in particular, matters of self-care.

You may want to go for that walk or a run, but perhaps there’s still so much that needs to be done before your team’s next training session. You know you’ll feel guilty if you step away from your desk for more than a few minutes.

To compound matters, you may silently chastise a colleague for stepping away from their desk and ask yourself ‘where are they finding the time?’

“There is not a single person in this room who has not felt guilt daily,” said Sonia Boland, the National Wellbeing Manager at the Australian Institute of Sport [AIS].

She was addressing an audience at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit in Melbourne in February where the question of guilt, and the fear of fostering an ‘excuses culture’, were raised.

“In those moments where I absolutely feel that, if you know it’s going to help you do your next thing better, ask yourself: what’s the worst that’s going to happen?” she continued, making the point that performance won’t instantly collapse because you’ve gone for a stroll.

“You’ve got to have something around you to allow you to take that step out of the door.”

Boland is echoed in her sentiment by Emily Downes, the General Manager of Wellbeing & Leadership at High Performance Sport New Zealand [HPSNZ], who admitted to the same feeling.

“We all probably struggle with that at one point in time or another,” Downes said. “Who else do you need to have on your support crew that helps give you that permission?”

“It’s not doing new things, it’s not creating new programmes,” added Boland. “It’s just giving more focus to how we do what we do, not what we do.”

Boland and Downes suggested four key staging posts in reaching this goal.

1. Establish what you mean by ‘wellbeing’

Establish the framework for how you want to talk about wellbeing before all else.

Boland will not define ‘wellbeing’ in sport. “What became really clear is that we’re all talking about slightly different things,” she said of her time at the AIS. “When we’re talking about wellbeing, are we talking about your wellbeing or my wellbeing? Or are we talking about the wellbeing of everyone in this space? Are we talking about the environment that enables us to be who we need to be? If you don’t know that, it’s probably the first step.”

2. Consider an ‘ecological’ approach

The wellbeing conversations at the AIS, HPSNZ and beyond are shifting from simply duty of care and risk management for athletes (and increasingly coaches) towards wellbeing as a performance enabler. It’s an encouraging development, but Boland argued that it needs to go beyond a focus on the individual.

“We can throw heaps of money to help athletes and coaches do wellbeing better, we can talk to them to the cows come home about how to deal with burnout, how to lower your stress levels, but none of that means anything if the things happening above and around them are continuing to compound how that stress is coming,” she said.

The Australian system promotes an “ecological model”, as Boland explained. This means there is a focus on relationships, structures, policies and even job descriptions – because job descriptions can help people to set boundaries and feedback mechanisms.

“People want feedback, they want to learn and grow from when it’s not working,” she added. “We need to have the opportunity to fail and we need to have the environment where we can do that. And all of those things contribute to the wellbeing of the individual.”

3. Support self-care

We return to the question of guilt over self-care despite growing awareness of its performance benefits.

“The challenge around this is: are you asking for it?” said Downes. “Are you communicating to your manager what support looks like for you or what you might need to be at your best?”

She addressed the leaders in the room directly. “Have you set up systems within your environment to enable people to [step away from their desk]?”

There is similar thinking across the Ditch. “[If you get up and leave] think about the poor person next to you who’s got the same level of guilt,” said Boland. “They might look at you and say ‘yeah, maybe I’ll give that a go tomorrow’. It creates the culture where we prioritise what we need to do to perform at our best.”

4. Make it make sense to your people

Different words will resonate with different groups, so choose your terms smartly when discussing wellbeing.

“Find language that makes sense to you and your people,” said Boland. “If I think about the Olympic and Paralympic system, the language that needs to be used in skateboarding needs to look different in equestrian, and it’s going to look different in rowing. It’s not one-size-fits-all.

“Find the stuff that’s going to resonate, that connects to the meaning and purpose.”

A Data & Innovation article brought to you by

By Joe Lemire

You can’t have a discussion about sports technology today without including athletes in that conversation. Their partnerships, investments and endorsements help fuel the space – they have emerged as major stakeholders in the sports tech ecosystem. The Athlete’s Voice series highlights the athletes leading the way and the projects and products they’re putting their influence behind.

* * * * *

Jake Paul, the popular influencer and PFL-signed fighter, shared a video clip from a June women’s flyweight fight and wrote, “The next MMA superstar…Dakota Ditcheva.”

Ditcheva, 25, is undefeated as a pro (13-0-0 with 11 wins by knockout), including August’s first-round TKO of Jena Bishop in their PFL [Professional Fighters League] semi-final match in Nashville. She is a Manchester, England native known for replicating Man City goal celebrations after winning bouts. Her mother, Lisa Howarth, was a World Kickboxing Association champion, so Ditcheva grew up in a gym and later won a gold at the 2016 International Federation of Muaythai Amateur World Championships before switching to MMA.

Now training at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida, Ditcheva won the PFL Europe tournament in 2023 to claim a $100,000 purse and gain entry into this year’s larger PFL draw. She has rapidly gained a large social media fanbase after a video of her weighing in last December was viewed nearly 19 million times and gained her 100,000 new followers.

On getting started in kickboxing at her mom’s gym…

It wasn’t something that I would say I always wanted to do from being young. I was involved in it straight away because my mum had a gym before I was born. So as soon as I was born, I was in the gym, pushing my little dolls’ prams while she was coaching and things like that. So it was always something that I was around.

I did train when I was, like, four years old. These like videos and photos of me fighting and stuff I did two, three fights when I was four, and then from that point, I didn’t do it at all until I was 13. It wasn’t really something I was interested in. And my mum was never one to say, ‘I was a fighter. Now, I want you to be.’ She actually didn’t want me to fight.

It just so happened that I came back to it myself when I was 13, after trying loads of different sports. I did netball, football, I did basketball, I did gymnastics, I did everything. To be honest, I tried so many different things. My mom and dad are the type of parents that are like, ‘Stay involved in sport. And it doesn’t matter what you choose to do. Just stay active, stay fit.’ So that’s what I did. But then when I was 13, I was, like, starting to train again. Obviously, my mom, still having a gym, I was older, understood it a little bit more, and that’s where it just went from there.

On the benefit of playing multiple sports…

Definitely, 100%, especially in martial arts like this. You need so many different qualities for this sport. And you get that from other sports. [From] gymnastics, you need the balance. You need the weight, the sense of gravity in this sport you need, which I probably got from gymnastics. I got loads of different things from playing sport.

And I think, as well, it just made me realize how much I wanted to do it. That was the main thing. It was something that I came back to myself, so being able to try different sports, see what I enjoyed, what I didn’t enjoy, what I loved. And that’s probably why I stuck to it so much now, because I wasn’t forced to do it. Doing all different sports built me to the person that I am today and showed me what I love the most.

On choosing to sign with the PFL…

When I signed a few years ago, 2022, I was at a point in my MMA career, where I was fighting on different shows, and even though I was winning and getting a lot of exposure from the shows, I didn’t feel like I was building up a set fan base with a promotion. So I felt like it was the right time when they approached me, especially with them approaching about the European season.

First, I wanted to stay close to home and build good support closer to where I’m from, in the UK. So it just really appealed to me at the time. And obviously the tournament money, the format and things like that was good for me because I like to fight quite regularly. And obviously, with this tournament, it’s back-to-back fights throughout the year, so just loads of things that really appealed, and it was lucky for me to get a promotion that said they would get behind me and push me as the brand for myself and not just get me fights.

On moving to Florida and training at American Top Team…

I was going through quite a difficult stage in my career and in my life in general. This is a really tough sport, a very selfish sport. I was probably a little bit lost. I was having great success in my career, but I was struggling to accept the fact that it’s a very different life to what my friends have. A few things at home, like relationships and things like that outside the sport just weren’t working out. I was feeling like I didn’t know what direction I was going.

It was hard to get the balance inside the sport as well. I was traveling a lot to different gyms to get the right training up and down the country. So it was just perfect timing for me to go over to America before I sign with PFL and just find that one base that I really felt at home at. And as well, the sunshine — in the UK, we don’t get much sunshine. Now, this is a tough sport, and people like said to me, ‘You can’t make it easy for yourself just because you’re waking up in the sun.’ And I’m like, ‘But why would I not want to better my life if I’m still working just as hard, waking up in Florida sunshine and still having a few sessions a day and working really hard, like, why wouldn’t I do that?’

On tracking sleep and recovery…

I’ve actually got a Whoop on. I do [track] a little bit. I got out of a bit of a routine because it’s difficult to wear this under my gloves sometimes because it can be a bit hard, but I do like to track it, mostly the sleep and the recovery. I think that’s a really important part for fighters, rather than the actual exercise. We know we work hard and we burn the calories, there’s no denying that — that’s not necessarily what I use it for — but the recovery and how well I’m sleeping and things like that is what I tend to track. That’s why I try and get in a routine of wearing something like this or other monitor [devices]. People just think we base everything off training and how hard we’re working, but, actually, it’s the recovery that we need to get on point as well.

On a habit she has changed based on the data…

Caffeine probably being one of them. My nutritionist has put a cap on what time I’m allowed caffeine now. So I actually see a lot difference in the amount I sleep, and the way I sleep when I’ve had caffeine too late. So that’s quite an interesting one to see. But you can check if I tend to have this [Celsius energy drink] a little bit too late, then I see a little bit of a difference in my sleep pattern.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

By John Portch

USA Swimming is currently the only American national governing body to have an in-house mental health provider.

Emily Klueh is the Manager of Psychological Services at USA Swimming.

“She’s a former National Team athlete, which is fantastic,” Lindsay Mintenko told the Leaders Performance Podcast of Klueh’s work in mid-July. “She understands the stressors that athletes are going through.”

Mintenko, the Director of the National Team at USA Swimming and a two-time Olympic gold medallist herself, explained that the NGB was listening when their athletes indicated in the wake of the 2016 Rio Games that they wanted and needed more mental health support.

Perhaps this collective demand emboldened Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, to go public with his story at a mental health conference. “Really, after every Olympics, I think I fell into a major state of depression,” Phelps said at the 2018 Kennedy Forum in Chicago. He felt his “hardest fall” was after the 2012 London Games when he could spend anywhere between three and five days in his room, not eating and barely sleeping while “just not wanting to be alive”.

It was a shocking admission but, in the subsequent six years, more and more athletes are speaking up. Some will be competing in Paris, such as seven-time Olympic gold medallist Caeleb Dressel and five-time Olympic medallist Simone Manuel, both of whom have withdrawn from competitions in the past citing mental health concerns.

Below, we take a closer look at how USA Swimming is supporting its Olympians.

Mental health = physical health

USA Swimming sees mental health as analogous to physical health. “It is essential to recognize our brain is a muscle, and just like any muscle in our body, we can work to make it stronger,” Klueh told USA Swimming’s website in May. “We all fluctuate along the continuum based on life events, genetics, and other environmental factors. Having support, resources, and tools to enhance our brains is crucial to our overall health and well-being.” The team’s swimmers are supported at every camp and competition. They can also call upon support wherever they live, as Mintenko revealed. “We provide a stipend for our National Team athletes to go to a mental health provider of their choice,” she said.

Fighting the stigma

For all the progress that has been made, there is still a stigma attached to mental ill health, as the Paris-bound Regan Smith highlighted at this year’s US Olympic swimming trials.

“I used to be afraid to talk about it, because I was afraid of being perceived as weak or washed up because women are really attacked I think in sports, like people are quick to judge us,” said Smith, who won three medals in Tokyo. “The second that you vocalise what you’re going through, I think it makes it a lot easier, because you realise that you’re not alone, you realise that it’s so normal to experience these feelings and then it makes it a lot easier to overcome them, at least in my instance, I’m really thankful for that.”

Smith admitted her mental health remains a work in progress, which adds credence to Klueh’s view that sport must normalise conversations about the topic. “I am very passionate about increasing the frequency and opportunities for conversations, reducing stigmas, and enhancing support for people who want to improve their minds,” she said.

The impact on performance

As Klueh explained, a clinical diagnosis may or may not have a tangible impact on athlete performance. It is important to understand that mental health exists on a spectrum. At one end, depression can make it difficult for a person to participate in group activities; it may also present mental and emotional challenges in training. Research also suggests a significant link between anxiety and disorders of the digestive system, which has implications for nutrition, fatigue and recovery.

Klueh made the case for prevention before cure. “On the other end of the spectrum, when looking at sport optimization, the way we talk to ourselves has an impact on how we engage,” she said.

“If we possess the tools to effectively self-talk, we can more easily focus and concentrate on specific tasks rather than give into fatigue, second guess ourselves, or worry about outcomes.”

USA Swimming’s senior leadership team also has a role to play. “I want to be able to provide them an opportunity to do their jobs and make sure they’re given a chance to promote themselves,” said Mintenko.

Striking a balance

Klueh believes that athletes should accept their daily struggles in the pursuit of striking a comfort level that works for them. “When we work with our minds, we can find intention and purpose in what we do, which in turn increases satisfaction and potentially decreases mental health struggles,” said Klueh, who believes this approach enables individuals to better process their emotions and, ultimately, make smarter decisions.

She wants to help set athletes on a successful trajectory, which is why it is incumbent on Mintenko to provide a safe and fun environment where medals are not the sole focus.

“We find other ways to measure success that aren’t just winning.”

Listen to our full interview with Lindsay Mintenko below:

Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.