Jason Weber (00:01)
Welcome to Two Coaches in the Coffee. Darren Burgess and Jason Weber with you here. Darren, I'm having a walk in the beautiful spring sunshine of Western Australia. How are you doing?
Darren (00:04)
Thank
What's an amazing day? Well, not quite as spectacular here, but still pretty good. It's approaching middle of September and last few years I've looked on it this time when other teams are playing and with a bit of envy and we're still alive and kicking. Got a game tomorrow night, which is sudden death. So we'll see how we go.
Jason Weber (00:23)
So, yeah.
So
yeah, we know what September means in Australia. big games, right? Big games. Last time out you weren't successful, which is always a challenge. So this week, does it look any different? How are you approaching it?
Darren (00:42)
It's interesting. Last week we got big if anything. The scoreboard maybe flooded us a bit. We weren't particularly good and a very experienced team, much older team, taught us bit of a lesson. I think the players will be way better prepared or more aware of what's coming in finals football. I think we only had three or four players who'd ever played in a final before that. hopefully
Jason Weber (00:50)
Yeah.
Darren (01:10)
They're better, they certainly don't lose or gain fitness in a week. you know, most of the fitness work is all been done. the interesting thing that we had is we had a player who'd been out for 10 weeks. One of our best players and most creative players and most people who watched last week would have said that our two most creative players are out one through suspension, one through injury. And he was touch and go for last week, the one through injury.
Jason Weber (01:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the done.
Darren (01:38)
And he's now back and you have the decision whether to start him or put him as a sub. And so that's been an interesting debate and this is probably going to go out before the game starts. I've been not. Yeah, but not talk about that, but yeah, it's a really interesting one because missing 10 weeks of a physical game and then you put the player straight into a final, but he's a genuine difference maker. So there's been a lot of discussions and a lot of.
Jason Weber (01:48)
So we'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that.
Speak!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Darren (02:04)
discussions amongst the performance staff about whether he should start or not and whether in fact he should play or not. So yeah, it's been an interesting couple of weeks.
Jason Weber (02:13)
So a few weeks ago we talked about that need to do match-hims the week before. This guy's been out a long time. Talk us through just last weekend. Did he go, I'm not aware, did he go back to Sandfall or did he...
Darren (02:25)
No, he didn't. He did
a match sim, but as much as we could do a match sim, which is pretty hard to do. He's been involved in a lot of training sessions. So he's had some multi-directional game scenarios, but in terms of an actual match, he hasn't done that.
Jason Weber (02:31)
Yeah, it's challenging. ⁓
So
would you have gone to how close to, know, let's say game expectation is 14 and a half kilometres, 12 % high speed. Would you have matched those figures like for your man? Yeah, you did. Okay, great. Great.
Darren (02:55)
Yep. Yeah, we've matched that. Yeah,
there are some discrepancies in his sort of pre-injury and post-injury testing. ⁓ But at the stage of the season and with what's on the line and with the player, ⁓ the player urging, yeah, we've made him available and the coaches, of course, picked him in the squad.
Jason Weber (03:03)
Yeah.
I'm gonna get out.
So I've got obviously not a running sport, but I've got a judoka player at the moment, like significant, what we call podium potential. So he's targeted next Olympics, but he's got a massive semi-membranosis tear, is currently week eight. And he's got a significant tournament coming up in about six weeks. And so we're doing the same thing. So at the moment, here's a tricky one. Here's one I reckon this could be a takeaway for.
our younger or mid-career practitioners out there. So this kid, this is where at week eight, three weeks ago at week five, and he had significant, so he didn't have tendon damage, but he did have a big tear with some big retractions. So it was graded a two, two plus, so it's a three probably, but there's no tendon. So he's he's got a cross-sectional area retraction. However, at week five,
Darren (03:53)
So.
Jason Weber (04:18)
He passed every strength test you could muster for hamstring. So, so I went back to medical and I said, look, we're passing everything, but I can tell you, I can put him in positions because it's semi-membranosis. I said, I can get him into positions where he can't function and he can feel it. So we're not like we're kidding ourselves if we're sticking to that. And I felt very strongly.
Darren (04:24)
Yeah, okay.
So
give me an idea. Now you might've seen me messing around on my computer here because I'm just looking at a article that I read yesterday. Biceps femoris long head, fascicle length not associated with hamstring injury risk in NCAA football athletes. So what tests did you do? We'll get to that one in a minute.
Jason Weber (04:49)
Yeah, yeah,
Right. No, no.
So, so this is semi-membranosis. So we went through all the, all the standard isometric testing in every angle I could find, but every time like we got, we're all, they're all loading bicep femur semi-tendinosis. So what it means is I had to come up with other evaluations that get him into the position that is a targeting semi-membranosis and then B in the
the functional modality. he, he did it in the eccentric modality, but he was, he was in the middle of a throw. so we've had to change it, but what we've been able to do is create a couple of, we've got one test that will work. We can do a, we can do an isometric, knee flexion. basic hamstring, but with the foot medally rotated. So it's the only technical one, but we've now got.
a number of more specific, like I would say functional exercises that we know different and he can feel a difference. And so we
Darren (05:50)
Right, see you
He can feel
it. Have you done any sort portable AMG or anything like that to?
Jason Weber (06:00)
No,
we don't. We're an Institute of sport, man. We don't have access to any of that. what we've. I'll be honest and say the EMG work that I've done is very, very limited. So I would have a look at it if it were available and try to understand it. But in the same breath, I haven't got great experience with that. But what I would say is I've got a lot of experience with getting the movement down pat and then understanding.
Darren (06:05)
Okay, so would you?
hearing.
Jason Weber (06:27)
What that athlete needs, the rate
of velocity. we're doing some really starting to get fast eccentric here because judo's very, sorry, judo's very like that. You get throws where it's extremely dynamic and it rip. It'll go from high isometric to fast eccentric, like in the blink of an eye. My guy moves his foot and suddenly the body mass, the opponent's changed. So we've had more success now building confidence in.
Darren (06:33)
Yeah.
Jason Weber (06:54)
Assuming those ranges of motion. look literally made it to to visualize it. You got a guy on one leg Bending forward to two hands on the ground with the opposite leg going straight up in the air So it's almost like a vertical splits because that's the position they get into but I guess my point towards your thing is I Would not challenge people but I would say make sure you really
Darren (06:56)
So look, literally, my goodness, it's a little bit, it's gonna go out one leg, bending forward, hands on the ground with the opposite leg going straight up the end.
Yep.
Jason Weber (07:22)
looking in heart. If you've got a bicep fem tear, well, there's a lot of data out on that. So you're going to be confident in what tests are about, but you're going to come in your career. You're going to come across things that are quite different. had a semi membranosis strain in a key defender once from planning his foot and rotating. It's almost the same as this injury. And we had ⁓ to evaluate it differently because he could blow up.
Darren (07:41)
Yeah,
Jason Weber (07:47)
Like let's say a Nord board very, very quickly. But again, you put that rotation moment into it and it's a little bit, it's quite different. So I guess the.
Darren (07:56)
I guess that's what that's that's the point. You know, we started off with talking about a guy who got bone bruising in his knee and had some surgery to uplift
Jason Weber (08:03)
Yeah, yeah.
Darren (08:05)
part of his anterior patella, or anterior tibia, I should say, tibial plateau. But objective markers plus athlete perception, but you're also saying that some of those objective markers don't actually catch semi-mem, so you have to... Yeah, and so a lot of people are going to things like a portable AMG to have a look at what...
Jason Weber (08:07)
wonderful.
No, you have to think around it.
Darren (08:28)
what exercises, but you've gone down the path of do this should catch my knowledge of anatomy means that this should catch semi membranosus. Are you feeling it there? Yes, I am.
Jason Weber (08:36)
Yes, that
plus the athletes response and what, and I'm going to, I was going to ask you something about this before with psychological price, but the other thing because judo is combat. Um, the athlete has to feel confident, right? They have to feel that they're getting into positions and that, this feels like the spot. I feel like I could really do this now. And that's the other perception is.
the moment this kid's starting to go, Hey, like I'm feeling more confident. can move my hip. We've got some, some particularly heavy band, resisted activities where he rotates and, and if you can imagine rotates backwards and pushes his hip into it, which is the mechanism that we did the injury. And so we're able to explore those ranges and resistance, fast resistance in those ranges. So I think all the early isometrics that.
Darren (09:16)
.
you
Jason Weber (09:31)
We use, we're really good, got us a good baseline. We've now moved to more contemporary, concentric, eccentric type contractions to try and generate. Like we've had retraction of cross-sectional area. Can we get some of that back? Can we, can we bolster the other fibers around it? And now we're starting to move gently into some more elastic type things. But I guess the takeaway is.
Darren (09:32)
for your performance today, can Now I need some more.
Yep.
Jason Weber (09:57)
It's not always as simple as what's there. Like, because you've got a Nord board or I shouldn't say an eccentric hamstring, that's not the be all and end all. You have to understand what it's recruiting and how it's doing it. Because then the other perspective is when you test people and I've seen this, we go, we've got a kid with a calf strain. he's just done. He's ticked off his isometric calf today. So he's good to sprint full on.
Darren (10:07)
Yeah.
Jason Weber (10:24)
It's like, hang on, he's just passed an isometric strength test. So you're now inferring that he's completely elastically ready to go and run full clip. That's just not a connection that's real. You have to wait. You're going to have to build that up and you're going to have to understand that there's going to be a time lag between an ability to create isometric force and then the potential to transfer that into stabilizing a foot in sprinting and
Darren (10:38)
Yeah.
Jason Weber (10:55)
having the elastic work around. So I guess the point of that is there's a lot of great stuff out there and I think we should continue to leverage research, but there are going to be circumstances you might have to think around a bit.
Darren (11:07)
Yeah, agree. I agree. And I think as long as trust the athlete, the athlete input is massive.
Jason Weber (11:13)
He's one. let's change tack, mate. You've had a result last week. said, younger team versus an old bull team that kind of came after you. Last week in the, what do they call it? the rugby super series, whatever it is. So Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand played South Africa, which is a massive international rugby union.
That is like an enormous rivalry game, heavily. But it was one of the players, Adi Savir, arguably one of the greatest players at the moment in world rugby, plays for New Zealand. was his 100th game. And all of the reports back up, and so New Zealand won, but all of the reports from the game, from the South African coach included, were the Kiwis were better.
Darren (11:56)
Hmm.
Jason Weber (12:03)
cross the board in that game because they were doing it to respect Artie Saviour's 100th game. So
psychologically, like you said, they weren't fitter. I'm sure they didn't have massively different tactics, but they applied themselves in a way that apparently reflected a hundred, you know, this guy's landmark game, which happens in lots of sports, So how do you balance that off against maybe a situation where
I'm not saying you were, but a team's overawed by the circumstance. We've seen teams go to grand finals and super bowls and whatever and be overwhelmed. Yet a team can spark up because one of their players is having a landmark game. What's your thoughts around that?
Darren (12:34)
Thank
Well, I think firstly,
Do you believe that that can have a, you believe that's the truth that if you have somebody having a landmark game, do you reckon that it can really spark you up that much?
Jason Weber (13:00)
Well, that's, that's what I'm saying. Like you go to a team in the AFL, with a player that I know very well recently, he had a landmark game, like he's retiring and that team could not produce on that night. So it does happen and it doesn't happen. I, I.
Darren (13:11)
Yeah, so.
If you if I think
if you went if you went across history, you're probably looking at. I don't know whether it would make a difference. It might in the first 10 minutes, you might be up from a speech that that that male or female like that player made before the game. Maybe you're up for that, but I'm not sure. I think probably the more not the more relevant question, but we would look back and say we had two weeks to prepare for this game.
Jason Weber (13:28)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (13:39)
And it was coincidentally, the probably arguably the best player in the Adelaide Crows club history in Tex walk. It was his 300th game. a massive landmark. And yet it was a chance to get into a home prelim final and he's 300th and, and we were still sub par well, well below par. So is there something that we could have done in, in the preparation differently?
Jason Weber (13:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (14:03)
And that's probably what we'll reflect on after the season and say, okay, is there something now we could turn around with the next two games and be in a grand final anyway, ⁓ which would be great. But yeah, yeah. And which it doesn't. But I think it, what it does do though, Jason, is it, it highlights the importance of the mental side of things because I doubt there's much physical difference between us last week and this week. And, and if I had to predict.
Jason Weber (14:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you go, what does it matter?
No, none.
Darren (14:30)
sitting 28 hours out from the game, I would think that we're going to be better tomorrow night than we were last week, even though we're probably fresher going into last week. So it does highlight the having a good understanding of psychology, having a good sports psychologist, having a good framework with which to work in that space.
Jason Weber (14:37)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah.
That's the thing. I get the psychologist piece. I'm not sure how you create that for sure. I saw an underpowered team in 2003. The Wildeby's go to a World Cup final, which we should never have been in. But by sheer force of will, by both the coach and the players and all the rest of us, we got there and they were up for the fight. But you know what?
Darren (15:00)
Mm.
Jason Weber (15:18)
They'd at a massive semi-final the week before and they just ran out of gas. They went to double overtime and got a field goal kicked. They didn't run out of gas but they spent everything which was kind of logical. was a World Cup final in your home. But then to see the same team in the next World Cup capitulate when they thought they probably deserved to win. And I'm like, again, it is a quandary for all of the...
Darren (15:42)
Mm.
Jason Weber (15:47)
technical work that we go to and the depth of detail at times. Sometimes I wonder how, how are we supposed to get and how do we repeatedly get the team into the right spot? Because it's not entirely like we're a part of that, but it's not. It's certainly not our remit, so to speak, being physical performance folks.
Darren (16:09)
No, well,
I've been in a couple of roles now where I oversee the psychology side of things and I certainly don't tell them what to do or how to do it or anything like that. But you do try and put in frameworks and processes of which they can work under. I work reasonably closely with our sports psych here at the Crows and I don't tell her in any way.
how to do it what to do, but we have healthy discussions about, OK, what are the pitfalls? What are the things that we're looking out for this week? What should and shouldn't we discuss? Those sorts of things. So I think you can have a good relationship with them and certainly not try to be one yourself. But that's why somebody told me some time ago, Jason, what are you doing messing around with humans? Get into horse physiology because then
Jason Weber (16:58)
Simple.
Darren (16:59)
They don't think they just want to run and it's perfect physiology and then it is down to who's got the best program.
Jason Weber (17:04)
Yeah, nah, I couldn't agree more. So let's change tack then.
Darren (17:08)
Now, before
we go, I've been into NFL. I thought it was an amazing opening season. I just absolutely loved it, watched it all. My team unfortunately lost, but any trends that you're seeing in the opening two weeks of college or NFL from an injury point of view?
Jason Weber (17:25)
Well, let's,
so the run at the moment that, I mean, the NFL's not having like consistent with maybe last year, the Achilles tendon's blowing up. There's been no run of that. think there's your stock standard spread of injuries. There's nothing there, but college football is probably going a little bit differently. I don't think from an injury perspective, I think, I know there's a few teams have tried a few things differently with their buildups, which
Darren (17:38)
Okay.
Jason Weber (17:50)
without speaking specifically to them, what I would say is that there are a number of teams, let's say moving away from what traditionally has been done. So traditionally teams go to camps and they'll blast away for nine or 10 days and the players are absolutely fingered. And then they open up in the trial games and then that's it. But you take a lot of injury risk from that because guys are absolutely gassed coming in.
Darren (18:18)
Is that the technical term they use, fingered? they, is that, that, that is, okay, sorry, I'm not aware of that lingo, but yeah, carry on.
Jason Weber (18:21)
Yeah, man. Yeah, it's, it's, it's,
it's it's a technical term. It's an Australian term, Australianism. just, just, it just means grossly. If I was designing one, would. ⁓ However, what I have seen is a couple of teams who are now quite high in the college rankings. Some of them.
Darren (18:28)
Yeah, OK. No worry. Does come up on the GPS dashboard, does it? Well, yeah, OK, go on.
Jason Weber (18:48)
One of them for the first time in 25 years, getting up in the top quarter of the national pool, but they've approached it differently. They've actually gone with a more, let's say structured approach, a couple of days on, day off, couple of days on, balancing their workload to get all their people ready and on the field. So guess it reflects back to that adage that we talk about is.
And I talk about all the time at the moment with Olympics. What do we do? We've got to protect the task, protect my shot putter, protect the ring. There you go. We've got to get on the, we've got to get to the field and train. We've got to get to the field and do the sport. Otherwise it doesn't matter. Cause if you don't, if you just, if you
Darren (19:34)
Yeah, but if you do, if you're
under train though, in order to protect, you know, it might be a little bit different in something like Shockfoot or Javelin, but yeah, what about.
Jason Weber (19:38)
I'm not saying.
Okay.
Darren (19:46)
What about NFL or college football?
Jason Weber (19:46)
Oh, there's under training,
under training for sure. But I think there's, you've been around that long enough. If you look at their programs over time, you look at some of them and go, my God, like, you're just going to touch your people. That it's, there's no sense to it at all. So again, I think if anything, what point am I making? My point is probably that there's more than one way to do things. So sure.
You can't go in the undertrain. I don't believe it all in the, you know, Hey, we'll, we'll stay fresh and we'll get there. And that that's been made abundantly clear in the AFL, maybe not so much this year, but definitely last year. So teams going to models where they only trained once a week and we're to go to the game fresh. You know, that probably worked for a little while, but you do that for seven or eight weeks. by the week eight, Hey, we're not running out the fourth as best as we, as good as we were. That's problematic.
Darren (20:24)
Mmm.
show.
Jason Weber (20:42)
But I think from a camp perspective, if you're putting such an onerous load, like training exposure on the players that they are grossly fatigued and what I would say that you get plays into that state, there are more injuries possible while we have to go there. I think it's ridiculous to go to that point and see many players busted. Now check out the wall of his 2006. We trained so hard.
Darren (20:50)
Thank
Jason Weber (21:12)
We're going to train like the All Blacks. What did we do? We ended up with nine or 10 shoulder injuries and lost every game that year because our playing staff weren't available. That's not being sensible. Right. And that's, that's over killing it. There's too much of a good thing.
Darren (21:25)
Hmm.
Yeah, I agree. I think you've got to get a nice balance. I'm going to leave you with one question before we go. Let's say you've done a great camp and they play, I think, three or four practice games and sometimes decide to play their regulars. Some don't. That's fine. Whatever you might do. Then you get the weekend off leading into the first season or you have the option.
Jason Weber (21:35)
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Darren (21:52)
of weekend off leading into the first game of the season. know some clubs that, there's the NFL clubs that had just the Saturday Sunday off, other clubs decided to give players off until sort of the Wednesday to really lighten them up. Out here, if the teams that have earned the right to go straight into a prelim.
Jason Weber (21:54)
Yeah.
Darren (22:13)
While we're battling it out this weekend, they may well have a bit of a practice match, Matt Simpson, which is typically what's done out here on the Friday or the Saturday. If you're in charge of an NFL team, would you try and encourage them to have a game exposure or the game's just too different?
Jason Weber (22:21)
Yeah.
I think it would depend on what you brought coming in. So if you've had, you know, the last six weeks buildups been off the charts, yeah, maybe you're going to reduce it. It's all contextual. mean, my preference, think I, my experience would be that football teams tend to do better near the ball. All right. So when we train, we keep them in the game. mean, NFL, if nothing else is an entirely in
incredibly complicated game. Do you need to just stay in the groove with some of that stuff? I think AFL, everyone talks about it being a sport of touch. So if we move away from touch too much, there you go, rhymes and everything. Sounds like a Hall and Oates song. Touch too much. if we, we, like I know the great Ross Lyons used to say, like we can't be away from the ball. We have to be touching it to keep that feel. And you coming from like an incredible football back in soccer.
Darren (22:57)
Sure. Yep.
Jason Weber (23:23)
Americans. That's a massive thing. Gotta touch the ball. Gotta be on the
Darren (23:27)
Yep.
Yep. Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking more. Is there. Is there a better way to do it? The body likes a rhythm of exposure on days off the Tour de France cyclists will still ride, you know, if you've if you've just got into a rhythm of playing a game every Saturday and then you get a weekend off and you don't play a game, does that, you know, ought to do some sort of match him?
So that your body, yeah, that's what I think as well. I think when you start to mess with the load too much. ⁓
Jason Weber (23:57)
Referably.
Preferably. I think
we can be overly smart for ourselves. I think the other one that's always a challenge is, is young men. What are young men with money going to do when you give them a weekend off? Right. Sometimes it's, sometimes it's pertinent to say Vince Lombardi, who's the, the NFL trophy is named after. He famously said, famously said the young men.
Darren (24:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, true.
Jason Weber (24:26)
need to work. like to work. They want to go to battle, but they need to know where the lines are. I think you can go to the stories of Chicago Bulls letting players go to Los Vegas. think that's a small team with a very exceptional talent pool, I think for the genuine majority, they stick to the work.
Darren (24:39)
Yeah, yeah, that's bit different.
Yep. Yep, agree.
Jason Weber (24:49)
On that note, mate, I wish you all the very best in 26 hours time. Get amongst it. Get amongst it. okay. I'm sure you will, mate. The boys will go to war for you.
Darren (24:53)
Yeah, let's hope so. Yeah, let's hope so. We'll hopefully have some better stories if we. So get a win.
I'd say so. All right, I'll speak to you. Good to see you. See you,
Jason Weber (25:09)
All right, mate. Good stuff. We'll speak soon. Very best, everyone. See you, bud.
