English Football Special – What is one thing you have stopped doing and why?

We asked a mix of six experts who all currently or have led performance departments within English football clubs this question. This is what they answered:

Jared Roberts Smith

Head of Physical Performance, Milton Keynes Dons

Earlier in my career, as technology evolved and data streams advanced, I leaned heavily on the numbers, guided by evidence-based research and industry standards. GPS metrics, heart rate analysis, strength diagnostics, match reviews, athlete wellness, recovery measures… the list goes on.

If the data dipped, something was wrong. If it was green, everything was fine. At the time, being data-led felt like best practice.

But I’ve learned that data without context is incomplete. Fatigue scores might trigger concern, but they miss emotional and mental state, and external factors. High GPS loads may look risky, but could be exactly what a player or coach needs to build rhythm or deliver tactical messages.

The data told part of the story, but not the full one.

The shift for me has come over the last year. I’ve stopped being data-led and have become more data-informed.

Data now guides decisions, not dictates them. It starts conversations, not ends them. I interpret metrics alongside coach insight, player feedback, the expertise of the multi-disciplinary team, and the ever-changing context of performance sport.

This evolution also adapted my views on being “evidence-based.” While research is vital, it often lags behind applied practice.the window to act.

Additionally, science isn’t always black and white. It often simplifies variables in a controlled setting. But in elite sport, nothing is isolated. Players are complex. Emotions, environments, and context change daily. Applied expertise exists to bridge this gap and to translate theory into something that actually works in practice.

Being data-informed gives us freedom—not to be reckless, but to be bold with intent. It removes performance anchors, encourages calculated risk, and allows us to shift our focus dynamically. Whether that’s toward load for adaptation and robustness development, or training for recovery and freshness, it all depends on what’s most relevant.

We use data not to restrict, but to unlock.

Data and evidence still underpin my practice, but they don’t make the decisions. They support critical thinking. They serve the people, the process, and the performance.

True high performance isn’t built in dashboards or textbooks. It’s built in context, communication, and confident, informed choices.

James Walsh

Head of Physical Performance, Port Vale Football Club

I have stopped generalised conditioning. Although the concept of the anaerobic speed reserve (ASR) isn’t new, it has certainly gained more notoriety in recent years across a variety of sports. Profiling athletes into either a speed, endurance, or hybrid profile can ensure every player will receive the appropriate stimulus to benefit them.

In previous years, I used ASR to prescribe conditioning, but usually only in individual scenarios such as rehab or one-on-one sessions.

Anybody who has ever delivered conditioning to a squad of players will know that individuals you would deem “fit” based on match outputs can struggle with certain types of drills. On the other hand, there are players who can complete conditioning drills comfortably but really struggle to get through 90 minutes with high intensity.

The art of prescribing the conditioning is integrating this knowledge into each player’s overall loading.

For example, a player’s speed profile may point to a session of 100 meter intervals at 45% of their ASR, potentially at 7m/s. A set of eight reps results in 800m at this speed. If you were to prescribe this without any consideration for the rest of the training session or week, you may end up significantly overloading the athlete.

My preferred method for profiling players is a Modified Bronco Test. The test is 1500m divided into 30-, 50-, and 70m shuttles repeated five times.

To calculate the maximum aerobic speed (MAS), take the time in seconds and subtract 29 (the number of turns in the test). Take the ratio of their maximum velocity to their MAS. A player with a ratio <1.85 is categorised as an endurance athlete. Any player with a ratio >1.95 is categorised as a speed athlete. Anybody between these values is classed as a hybrid athlete.

These thresholds are purely based on my experiential evidence and knowledge of previous research applied to my environment.

Through minor changes to the way I work, this strategy has improved the individualisation of the players’ training.

Dave Carolan

High Performance Strategy Advisor, Dave Carolan Performance

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist hopes it will turn. The realist adjusts the sail.”

Experience is hard earned. But those on the data and technology sides of sport can flourish given the huge value placed on their novel approaches, insights, and processes.

There is a short lifespan for emerging methods, and there are fast tracks—maybe short cuts—to becoming an “expert.” Social channels give everyone a voice. That is important and not to be underestimated. Yet having something to say may not mean you should say it!

Over the last 12 months I have begun to step away from trying to consume media promoting low value or quick fix opinions. Given all of the noise, I’m looking for people and companies with more signal.

I want less visibility of the fast side hustle opportunity. The mentorship scheme that’s too good to be true. Tagging players in a session. The pre- or in-season camps by social media orientated personal performance coaches.

None of these deserve much of my attention.

Social media didn’t get many of us to the levels we’ve worked at. Grit and graft more than likes and tags. Perhaps thats too much, too hard, or just too Gen X.

In the race to become influential or an influencer, the self-promotion of anything and everything that one does has devalued real world experience. Now it’s about having a following and using other people’s knowledge to self-promote. You can have and hold trickle down opinions, methods, and experience. But without gaining them—earning them—yourself, you don’t have the basis for producing the same outcomes as the people who actually developed them. 

This trend is perhaps not going to change—it’s an ultra-competitive world out there. But I’ve adjusted my sails to meet this new wind.

My destination may not have changed but navigating to get there certainly has. Experience tells me these types of storms blow themselves out. The experienced navigator has seen them pass many times and maintains steady progress.

Thomas Little

Head of Performance, Sheffield United

Over the past year, I’ve gradually reduced my reliance on external load metrics and normative data. While I still use them, I now place greater emphasis on context and alternative methods to answer foundational performance questions.

Martin Buchheit’s Sport Science 3 series heightened my growing concern with several modern performance practices.

External metrics from GPS, for example, provide an array of objective load markers, which is especially useful in sports with varied locomotive demands. Normative data helps flag potential over- or under-training by comparing current loads to historical norms. These tools are helpful when managing multiple athletes across frequent sessions and competitions.

When examining external load, we typically focus on the value rather than how it was achieved. But the context of how athletes achieve metrics is central to their effect.

Multidirectional drills are important in many sports due to the specificity of their training effects and the importance of combined tactical and  technical development. Most external metrics do not adequately reflect load during such drills, and can vastly misrepresent internal load and neuromuscular strain.

A classic example is comparing athletes who played in a rugby match versus the non-starters who completed post-match running.

The “top-up session” running accumulates key external markers far more efficiently. Many external metrics are used to assess acceleration or deceleration demands of intermittent agility-based sports. But most do a poor job, and commonly used benchmarks do not reflect how centripetal demands increase with smaller team sizes and accompanying small pitches.

Intensive training methods are popular due to the high stimulation of both anaerobic and aerobic systems, and heightened neuromuscular adaptations. However, again, most external load metrics underestimate actual load during very intense drills due to the relatively short durations.

Our most recent head coach has an intense counter-press ideology and uses classic tactical periodisation. Several metrics of acceleration and deceleration correlated inversely with intensive days. External loads often reflected lower values than internal load metrics such as rate of perceived exertion.

Normative data shares similar issues with the lack of context. But it is also hampered by periodization, the non-normative distribution of high intensity metrics, and inappropriate representation as “optimal.”

We are now using heart rate to assess internal load, with submaximal tests to review cardiovascular adaptations and the efficacy of the training. To predict and assess load, we have designed a load score similar to Banister’s TRIMP model, which categorises drills and applies a load scale dependent on the targeted energy system. 

Mark Cowan

First Team Lead Sports Scientist, Tranmere Rovers FC

Removing the Nordic hamstring exercise from our strength programme was a strategic decision informed by athlete feedback, performance relevance, and evolving evidence. While Nordics have traditionally been promoted for hamstring injury prevention, their utility within our current framework had become increasingly limited.

First, Nordics are a high tension, eccentric overload movement that heavily stresses the distal hamstring region. However, they minimally involve the biceps femoris long head (BfLH), the most commonly strained hamstring muscle in football. ^[1] The BfLH crosses the hip and knee. During a Nordic, the hip stays in extension and therefore doesn’t fully stretch the BfLH. This lack of targeted activation undermines their effectiveness as a preventative tool, especially when our goal is to build resilience in the most injury prone tissue.

Second, Nordics often provoke excessive soreness, reduce neuromuscular readiness, and compromise training quality, particularly during congested fixture periods. Squad feedback consistently highlighted discomfort and low engagement with the exercise, which began to outweigh its perceived benefits.

Third, our programme now includes more context-specific eccentric loading strategies. Seated hamstring curls (SHC) allow us to isolate and strengthen the BfLH in a controlled, joint friendly manner. ^[2] Unlike Nordics, seated hamstring curls put the hip and knee in extension before athletes commence the exercise.

Combined with RDLs and sprinting—which naturally loads the hamstrings eccentrically at high velocity—we’re achieving protective adaptations through both gym-based and task-relevant means.

This dual approach offers better transfer to match demands and allows for individualized progression.

Moreover, the Nordic lacks movement specificity. It’s a slow, isolated action that doesn’t reflect the dynamic, high speed nature of hamstring function during sprinting. ^[3] By emphasizing sprint-based interventions such as resisted sprints, wicket runs, curved sprints, and technical acceleration drills, we’re now targeting hamstring resilience through real world loading patterns that mirror injury mechanisms and performance demands.

Finally, our injury surveillance data showed no significant reduction in hamstring injuries attributable to Nordics over recent seasons. Coupled with emerging literature questioning their standalone efficacy, this supported our decision to reallocate time and resources toward more holistic posterior chain development.

Andy Kavanagh

Head of Performance, Bristol City Football Club

We have moved away from running a more “traditional” strength programme. In the past, this might have followed a set weekly structure, such as a lower body strength session on an extensive training day and a power based session at another point in the week.

This approach has clear value and continues to be used effectively in many environments.

However, injuries remain a major challenge in the Championship, and part of our motivation was to try something different and be more proactive in how we support players and have a positive impact.

We’ve shifted towards a more individualised system. Programmes are shaped by the information we gather from player testing, injury histories, and how individuals respond to training and games. This gives us a clearer picture of what a player may need most, whether that is to further develop physical qualities, improve movement efficiency, or address deficits that might place them at risk.

Mechanical assessments have been valuable in helping us understand how players move, and we’ve also placed greater emphasis on lumbo-pelvic control work as one tool to support posterior chain health. These additions have provided more targeted interventions, which we hope will contribute to players staying available and robust across a long season.

At the same time, recovery has become an increasingly important focus.

We cannot influence fixture congestion. But we can influence how players recover between short turnaround games. Balancing gym-based development work with strategies that promote recovery has been an important consideration in how we’ve adapted our weekly structure.

This does not mean that we have removed traditional strength and power work. Those elements remain key, and are microdosed as appropriate. But we have changed how we apply them, with the intention of tailoring training more closely to individual needs while also managing the demands of the schedule.

This has brought greater clarity and flexibility, while keeping the aim simple: to support players in being fit, available, and able to perform consistently in one of the most demanding leagues in football.