The labels Professor of the National Institute of Physical Education of Catalonia or Founder and Director of Complex Systems in Sport Research Group are too small to describe Natàlia Balagué. She applies complex systems approach to understand human behaviour in sport. From his wisdom have emerged professionals of great caliber, works like Training or Synergizing and Network Physiology of Exercise or books like Biological Intelligence. She doesn’t provide recipes or methodologies but ways of...

The Soviet Lev P. Matveyev was considered by many an eminence in the global approach to training and periodization theory. The story goes that Stalin asked him what where the most important training principles to beat the Americans in the next Olympics. Matveyev, after investigating, replied that the key was the principle of individuality. This clashed with communism and was not applied as the sport scientist suggested. Wolfgang Schöllhorn trained different German athletes and led them to...

The conversation is in Spanish. You can watch it with English subtitles in the YouTube video of the episode or read the automatic English transcript by clicking on the menu above. AntiCulturista and I are united by the purpose of questioning beliefs —which we consider erroneous— that are normalized throughout society. But, the truth is, we do it from two completely different battle fronts. Avoiding absolute truths, we discuss training points of view and approach problems from two different...

One plays as one lives Go to FosburyFlop.blog to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content Get full access to Fosbury Flop at www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

John Kiely won the “monkey mind” every human has inside him and broke with all the biases, beliefs, thoughts... that unconsciously and erroneously reigned —and still do— in the world of sport. Unlike many, he does not go against the complexity and uncertainty of the sport, but moves in them like a fish in water. John Kiely is a sports professional with a way of doing things, of thinking... that allows him to treat athletes like people, not like machines. He knows why he does things, “that’s...

How do we improve what we can't measure? Go to FosburyFlop.blog to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content Get full access to Fosbury Flop at www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

Manuel Sola —great disseminator about to complexity and sport, among many others— interviews me in his podcast Evolutionary Performance. On it, Manuel connects science, practice and experience to talk about everything that helps you improve your performance, without neglecting your health. The conversation explores the story of a change of perspective towards training and life. I answer the questions of Manuel as best I can, but what I like most is the knowledge he adds to every topic. My...

Look at the attached picture below and think about how many actions in a tennis match —or season— are identical. No action is the same: It is not said by Philip or me, Rafa Nadal says it. Well, tennis training has always gone in the opposite direction to this principle. The complexity of the sport has been forgotten and has been trained by breaking it down and repetitively. Philip provides us with the key information so that your training has a real transfer to the game. So that your players...

How culture impacts how we play. Go to FosburyFlop.substack.com to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. Get full access to Fosbury Flop at fosburyflop.substack.com/subscribe

The conversation is in Spanish. You can watch it with English subtitles in the YouTube video of the episode. 10km running up the mountain, 1h and a half weights, 12km swimming with a shirt or weights, 1h gym, 1h and a half soccer match —because the coach wanted to play— and a last waterpolo training session was the daily bread of Dani Ballart and the entire Spanish waterpolo team to prepare for the Barcelona '92 Olympics. His coach, Dragan Matutinovic, justified his military methods in the...

I would summarize the way of seeing the world of Raúl and his Fidias team with Mishima’s quote: “Qui n’ha begut en tindrà set tota la vida.” (“Whoever has drunk of this will be thirsty all his life.”) He doesn’t give us a recipe, but he teaches us how to cook. He doesn’t explain us a methodology or tell us what exercises to do, but he teaches us how to build our and choose them. That’s why his way of thinking and seeing the world applies to everything and, while he explains us how he trains,...

Football is played all over the world but you can find many different game-styles depending on the culture and society in which they are carried out. In Barcelona, the Gothic cathedrals are wide, rather than deep, like the style of play of Pep Guardiola’s Barça. In Brazil, samba has influenced the moves of its players forged in the streets and in small playing spaces. A capitalist society focused on competition, not education, is also impacting how we play. Starting at the top and working his...