Is it too early to condemn early specialisation? - a conversation with Joe Baker and Sandy Mosher

Joe Baker is Professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University. He makes a welcome return to the podcast along with his research associate, Alexandra 'Sandy' Mosher.

Joe's research team focuses on optimal human development to understand how someone gets to, and stays at, the highest levels of performance. His previous research in this area has considered various psychosocial and environmental factors influencing athletic skill development across a range of sports to catalogue the extensive range of factors affecting an athlete's capacity to maximize their potential.

In this episode with unpack some fascinating new research which challenges the commonly held suggestion that early specialisation is "the villain of talent development", how it might be possible to experience 'healthy early specialisation' and why the link between early specialisation and burnout and injury is not what we think it is.

It is a fascinating discussion...

I hope you enjoy

Transforming a whole sport system over a curry - a conversation with Scott McNeill

Scott McNeill is a Performance Coach Developer for GB Hockey, a Performance Director for the Canoe Association of Northern Ireland as well as a mentor for the Premier League.

He has been part of a group of people that have led a transformation within GB Field Hockey to redevelop the player development system in line with the principles of Ecological Dynamics.

In this fascinating conversation, Scott describes the journey of bringing about this change within the sport and some of the key pillars of embedding these concepts and ideas into the psyche of the playing and coaching community.

While this discussion explores how this is done on a whole sport scale, the ideas and approaches that are shared by Scott apply to anybody looking to foster a player centred environment which allows players to thrive and develop.

Even though I have been on this journey with Scott and his colleagues as a coach and coach developer, I still found the conversation fascinating and insightful. I know you will too!!

Enjoy!!

This Podcast is brought to you by a great new book called 'Conversations for the Journey - 40 ways to build sporting character' by Richard Shorter from www.non-perfectdad.co.uk. It is a great book packed full of useful ideas and questions to engage the young sports athlete. It is great to parents but also great for coaches (a proper stocking filler!)

Subscribers to The Talent Equation can get a special 10% discount if they click on this link

Effective vs Efficient Talent Development Systems

This week I am doing a 'Vlog' (which is a Video Blog apparently!) because I am finding it hard to find the time to share my thoughts through writing.

I was part of the team that ran a 'Future Player' conference this weekend at Twickenham. We had some fascinating talks and workshops that really got the cogs whirring.

In this video I talk about the difference between an effective and an efficent talent development system and why an efficient system might not be what you want.

I also suggest how we might use science to assist in making our systems more effective AND more efficient which is the best of both worlds.

Enjoy...