The Omniathlete Blog

The case for sprint-shaped isometrics is built on a single appealing variable, joint angle, and on the assumption that matching it converts a general adaptation into a specific one. The evidence does not support that conversion.

Proximal hamstring tendinopathy is usually explained to athletes in a single sentence: the tendon has been loaded too much. The explanation is incomplete, and its incompleteness matters in practice, because it points towards a single intervention. Reducing running volume changes one input in a condition whose onset appears to depend on several, each of which can be modified independently and none of which compensates for the others.

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about whether weightlifting straps should be used during the isometric mid-thigh pull. The argument for them seems obvious. If an athlete’s grip limits how much force they can produce, strap their hands to the bar and let the rest of the body express its true capacity. But there is a problem hidden inside that logic: how do we know grip was the limiting factor?

Over the past decade the barbell hip thrust has become one of the most widely adopted posterior-chain exercises in strength and conditioning. Set alongside the joint kinetics of acceleration, the timing of force production, and the available intervention data, the hip thrust looks more like a general hip extensor exercise than a sprint-specific one.

Every season begins the same way. Preseason has something of the first day at school about it. Everyone arrives with good intentions, the timetable looks manageable on paper, and there is a general belief that this year will be better organised than the last. Four to six weeks later the squad is meant to be ready for ten months of football.

The word activation has become one of the most frequently used terms in strength and conditioning. It appears on session plans, in warm-up templates, and in the language coaches use with their athletes. Mini-band walks, glute bridges, and a familiar set of low-load drills are prescribed to "activate" a muscle or a region before the main training session begins. The practice is now so widespread that it is rarely questioned.

Power is the most desirable quality in sport. It can be the difference maker at the elite level and a massive competitive advantage at every level below it. For too long there has been a myth that power cannot be trained, either you have it or you don't. That myth costs athlete’s development time they will never get back.

In most high performance environments the shoe is treated as a piece of clothing rather than as a piece of equipment. The object that mediates the interaction between athlete and ground in every step of every session, however, is usually selected by sponsorship agreement, personal habit or aesthetic preference, and is rarely documented.

Isometric training builds tendon stiffness; plyometric training builds the muscle stiffness that uses it. Danny Lum on programming both across a season.

In professional football, the relationship between squad availability and competitive outcomes is well documented. Teams that maintain a healthy, available squad through the final stages of a competition consistently give themselves better conditions to perform. High injury burden correlates with underperformance across a season, and the effect is particularly evident during congested fixture periods.

Tendinopathy is among the most persistent and clinically frustrating conditions in athletic practice. It accounts for a disproportionate share of chronic overuse injury, and its management has undergone significant revision over the past decade as the underlying biology has become better understood. While the principles discussed here apply across tendons throughout the body, the Achilles tendon provides the most instructive model.

Sport science has a recurring habit of giving new names to ideas that already exist. A concept that has been discussed and applied for years reappears under a fresh label, acquires momentum through conference talks and social media, and is presented as though it were a discovery rather than a restatement. The most recent case is microdosing.