Putting Change into Delivering COD Coaching Sessions

Coaching change of direction is not primarily a biomechanics problem. It is a human problem. Before any technical model can be successfully delivered, a practitioner must first establish the conditions under which an athlete will actually want to change, engage, and take ownership of the process. The first skill is not error-spotting — it is building genuine curiosity in the athlete about their own movement, and creating an environment in which coach and athlete are working toward the same goal rather than operating on a script written by someone else.

After years of work spanning track and field, professional rugby, football with England Athletics, and a twelve-year involvement with EXOS that has taken these ideas into training environments around the world, the clearest lesson I can offer is this: it is about working with the person, not executing a coaching manual. Research informs good practice, but the athlete sitting in front of you is always more specific than any protocol.

That said, structure matters. You need both a coherent system for organising training and a set of principles precise enough to generate genuine technical change. The approach I have developed uses a model built around three anchoring concepts: Position, Pattern, and Power. Everything in the weight room, on the track, and on the field flows from these three elements.

Position, Pattern, Power

Position is the prerequisite. An athlete cannot express power in a change of direction movement if they cannot first achieve the structural positions that make efficient force application possible. Position is governed by two qualities: mobility and stability. Without sufficient mobility in the relevant joints — hips, ankles, thoracic spine, shoulders — the athlete cannot attain the positions from which stability can be built. These are not competing qualities; mobility creates the range within which stability operates.

Pattern refers to the coordinated sequencing of the body's segments through a movement. The brain and body must function as integrated hardware and software — the nervous system orchestrating muscular contractions in a rhythmical, efficient sequence. Patterning deficits show up as timing errors, compensatory movements, and energy leaks. A technically inefficient COD movement not only reduces performance — it increases injury risk by distributing forces through joints and tissues that are not optimally positioned to handle them.

Power is the output. Once position and pattern are in place, the athlete can begin to express the force their musculature is capable of producing in a mechanically efficient direction. Power expressed through poor position or flawed patterning is wasted — or worse, it becomes injurious. Targeting power development before position and pattern are established is one of the most common programming errors in COD training.

The Running Continuum and Why It Matters for COD

Acceleration is the bridge between the weight room and field performance, and it is also the foundation of change of direction. Every COD movement ends in a re-acceleration — so an athlete who cannot accelerate well cannot change direction well.

I divide the running continuum into three zones. The acceleration zone (roughly 0–15 metres in track terms — the first decisive steps in any team sport action) is where posture, shin angles, and leg mechanics determine output. The transition zone (15–30 metres) is where the body moves from an angled acceleration posture toward the more upright mechanics of top speed. The absolute speed zone (beyond 30 metres) is where stride mechanics and elastic capacity become the dominant variables.

In field sport, the meter markers disappear, but the mechanical principles remain identical. Most COD actions occur inside the acceleration zone — within the first five to ten metres of re-acceleration following a direction change. The qualities that govern that zone are therefore exactly the qualities we need to develop: postural integrity, positive shin angles, active arm drive, and dorsiflexion at ground contact.

The technical signatures to look for in acceleration are consistent across levels:

• posture (a straight line from head to heel, total body lean with the shoulders projecting over the front foot);

• leg and knee drive (the hip projects forward as the foot strikes and pushes through the ground — not onto it);

• arm action (elbows at 90 degrees, driven backward with intention — I use the cue "throw the watch off the wrist" to help athletes feel the required force and timing);

• and dorsiflexion (toes pulled up to preload the foot before ground contact, enabling a powerful triple extension). Watch Gareth Bale, watch Kieran Trippier — these signatures are all present simultaneously, not as isolated technical elements but as an integrated expression of efficient movement.

The Athletic Base Position

Every COD movement originates from the athletic base position. This is not a static starting stance — it is a dynamic readiness state from which the athlete can accelerate in any direction without first needing to reorganise their body.

The characteristics of an optimal athletic base position are: a positive shin angle (the tibia tilting forward, lowering the centre of mass toward the base of support), neutral pelvis without lumbar hyperextension or thoracic flexion, shoulders stacked over toes, weight loaded through the inside of both feet, and enough hip, knee, and ankle flexion to generate immediate force in any plane. Loading the inside of the foot creates an active pre-tension that allows the athlete to push east, west, or north without wasting time shifting weight from an unfavourable position.

From this base, the four primary COD techniques are all expressions of force applied in different directions:

In the lateral shuffle, the athlete pushes off the outside of one foot and loads onto the inside of the other, moving laterally while staying low and connected. In the cut, the athlete lowers the centre of mass, creates angles in the extension and drive legs that maximise force application, and transitions weight from the outside to the inside of the foot as direction reverses. In the crossover, the inside leg punches sharply across the body — not swings around it — to minimise air time and accelerate the transition. In the drop step (or open step), the athlete rotates a foot to open the hip while pushing off the trail leg, pivoting to redirect toward a new target.

Each of these techniques makes specific demands on hip rotation mobility, ankle stability, and the ability to coordinate the upper and lower body in opposition under speed.

Where Movement Limitations Come From

No athlete arrives at perfect mechanical efficiency. The practitioner's job is to identify where limitations lie, determine whether they are structural (fixed) or functional (trainable), and design interventions accordingly.

Two factors exert disproportionate influence on COD quality and are consistently underexamined.

The first is scapular function — the ability to protract and retract the shoulder blade efficiently on both sides. Poor scapular control disrupts the chain of tension through the upper body that stabilises the torso during high-speed direction changes, and limits the arm action that drives power output. This is not an issue that belongs exclusively to the S&C coach — it requires informed conversations with physiotherapy and medical staff.

The second is hip capsule rotation — both internal and external rotation of the femur within the hip joint. Restricted hip rotation is one of the most common limiters in COD mechanics. It prevents the lateral push angles of a shuffle, the depth of a cut, or the open gate of a drop step. Neither factor should be overlooked in initial screening.

Further down the chain, foot loading mechanics deserve more attention than they typically receive. The ability to shift weight efficiently from the outside to the inside of the foot is fundamental to every COD technique. The big toe functions as the primary accelerator — the last point of contact before push-off and the primary driver of ground force during re-acceleration. Developing conscious awareness of foot pressure, big toe engagement, and the inside-to-outside loading sequence is a genuine performance lever that is almost universally neglected. Athletes who have no sense of how their foot interacts with the ground will always be limited in their COD capacity, regardless of their strength levels.

The Coaching Process

A clear framework structures the delivery of COD coaching: first, define technical excellence for the specific technique; second, error-spot — identify the deviations from that standard in the athlete you are observing; third, design and apply interventions to close the gap.

The interventions draw on four channels:

• verbal cuing (concise, action-oriented language the athlete can process quickly);

• tactile cuing (physical contact or feedback to direct attention to a relevant body part);

• reactive cuing (responses from the coach based on what the athlete just produced, delivered in the moment);

• and awareness cuing (prompts that develop the athlete's own proprioceptive sense of where their body is and what it is doing).

  
  

The feel component is underestimated. I worked with Ukrainian track and field athletes whose description of training sessions was consistently organised around feel — "we really felt what you were talking about." Athletes who understand what correct movement should feel like from the inside are far more capable of self-correcting and sustaining technical improvements under fatigue and competition conditions. Building that internal sense is a coaching objective in itself, not a secondary outcome.

The Functional Movement Screen provides a useful entry point for identifying mobility and stability limitations before they manifest as technical errors in high-speed COD movements. It generates targeted conversations between the S&C practitioner and medical staff, and it flags structural restrictions early enough to allow programming adjustments before problems become injuries.

Strength Assessment and Programming Sequence

Three simple tests provide a rapid snapshot of an athlete's strength profile as it relates to COD: the non-countermovement jump (squat jump from a static start), the countermovement jump, and a 40-centimetre drop jump. Together, they reveal whether the primary limitation is maximal strength, explosive strength, or reactive strength. An athlete with a large gap between squat jump and countermovement jump has reactive capacity but limited maximal force production. An athlete with a poor drop jump relative to their countermovement jump lacks the reactive strength needed for rapid COD. The profile tells you where to focus.

Critically, movement competency development must run concurrently with strength development — not after it. In a four-week training block, the movement gains from targeted COD coaching will almost always exceed the gains from a generic gym programme in terms of immediate transfer to field performance. Small corrections to the athletic base position, coaching foot loading mechanics, fixing the arm action — these produce measurable change in movement quality within a single session. These gains compound with consistent, progressive application.

The session structure that supports this uses a "little and often" approach in the warm-up: 10 to 12 minutes of soft tissue work, mobility, and movement pattern sequences specific to the session's focus. If the session emphasises cutting, the warm-up emphasises anterior hip mobility, pillar stability, and hip dissociation patterns that directly prepare the relevant movement chains. Nothing is generic. The movement the athlete will practice most intensely is the movement prepared most specifically at the start.

Closing Thoughts

Change of direction performance sits at the intersection of biomechanics, strength, mobility, awareness, and the coach-athlete relationship. None of these elements is sufficient on its own. The practitioner who approaches COD coaching with both a coherent technical model and the patience to build genuine buy-in from the athlete will produce far more durable and transferable improvements than one who simply programs drills without regard for the individual in front of them.

Movement is the foundation of sport performance. The best movers are consistently the best performers — not because movement is everything, but because efficient movement is the medium through which all other physical and technical qualities are expressed. Developing that efficiency is the core of the job.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the single most important thing to get right before adding COD-specific strength work?

A: Position and pattern. An athlete who cannot achieve and hold the athletic base position, or who consistently shows timing errors in the basic COD techniques, will not transfer gym-based strength gains onto the field effectively. Get the position right, get the movement pattern established, and then load it. Reversing that sequence is the most common mistake I see.

Q: How do you identify whether a hip restriction is structural or functional?

A: A structural restriction — a limitation driven by the bony anatomy of the hip joint — will not respond to mobility work. A functional restriction, driven by soft tissue tightness or habitual motor patterns, will show change within a session or across a short training block. If targeted hip mobility work produces no meaningful improvement in range after two to three weeks of consistent application, the restriction is likely structural, and the programme needs to be built around it rather than against it.

Q: Why do you emphasise the big toe specifically?

A: The big toe is the last contact point before push-off in any direction change and the primary driver of ground force during re-acceleration. Athletes with no awareness of how their foot loads — and particularly with no conscious engagement of the big toe at push-off — are leaving force on the ground. Once you develop that awareness in an athlete, the change in their re-acceleration mechanics is often immediate and visible.

Q: How should the three jump tests inform programming decisions?

A: The squat jump gives you maximal force production without elastic contribution. The countermovement jump adds the stretch-shortening cycle. The drop jump measures reactive strength under impact. The gaps between these scores tell you where the limitation sits: an athlete with a large squat-to-CMJ gap but a poor drop jump needs reactive strength work. An athlete with strong CMJ but weak squat jump may benefit more from maximal strength development. Match the emphasis to the actual profile, not to a generic template.

Q: What does a good COD-focused warm-up actually look like?

A: Ten to twelve minutes, entirely specific to what you are about to coach. If the session is about cutting mechanics, the warm-up works anterior hip mobility, pillar stability, and hip dissociation. If it is about the drop step, it prioritises hip external rotation and foot loading awareness. Nothing is generic. The movement pattern you are about to coach should be the one that is most specifically prepared — that is the standard I hold every warm-up to.

Gareth has over 20 years as a Strength and Conditioning coach with athletes from a wide range of sports, and various levels including Olympic, professional, amateur, recreational, and youth athletes. He has worked on a variety of contracts for EXOS and supported the education side of the company delivering their methodology mentorships and workshops in various countries around the globe.  He has taught in over a dozen countries, on three continents plus implemented their methodology within a range of sporting teams. From the wide range of individuals he has worked with as a coach or educator he has also mentored many towards becoming an accredited coach and provided guidance to established coaches on further professional development.