Tag: coaching
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Return-to-Play Testing: What the Symmetry Score Misses
An athlete can hit a passing symmetry score and still carry real reinjury risk. This article covers what research on return-to-play testing has found, why the standard limb symmetry index has documented validity problems, and what a more defensible testing approach looks like.
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Unilateral vs Bilateral Training: Is One Better?
Online debate treats unilateral versus bilateral training as a real fork in the road. A 2025 meta-analysis pooling every controlled comparison gives a precise answer: no hypertrophy difference, and strength gains that follow the exact pattern trained. This article covers the findings and how to apply them.
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Why Your Most Compliant Athletes Are the Hardest to Coach
An athlete who never misses a session and never complains is not necessarily an athlete without a problem. Research on overreaching shows highly motivated athletes systematically under-report strain, concealing risk that a coach relying on compliance alone will not see.
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When RPE and Readiness Scores Disagree, Which One Do You Trust?
RPE and wearable readiness scores measure different things, and expecting them to always agree misunderstands what each is built to do. This article covers where they typically diverge, why, and a practical framework for what to do when an athlete’s self-report and their device disagree.
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The Talent Identification Trap: Relative Age Effect
An eleven-month age gap in youth sport can look exactly like a talent gap, and coaches consistently select for it. This article covers the relative age effect, why the resulting skill gap often isn’t real, and the specific point in elite development where the bias quietly corrects itself, too late for many of the players…
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When the Plan Meets the Athlete: Autoregulation in Practice
Autoregulation adjusts training to the athlete in front of you rather than to numbers set weeks ago. This article covers the main methods, what the evidence supports, and the reporting distortion that quietly undermines every one of them.
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The Off-Season Is Not Optional
Skipping or shortening the off-season carries a measurable physiological cost. This article covers what the research on detraining shows, how much recovery time athletes actually need, and how to structure the off-season as its own periodized phase.
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RPE: from a kiosk to Afitpilot
Three years ago I set up an RPE kiosk at a CrossFit box: an iPad on a stand near the exit, copied from the format you tap on the way out of an airport. After each WOD, athletes tapped a number from 1 to 10. This post covers what RPE is, what the kiosk actually…
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