Complete Tactical Periodization Guide & How To Apply It Effectively w/ David Tenney (SSOF Ep 198)

James de Lacey0:22

Nice. So you've been deep in this and I think what would be a good place to start is let's just start what tactical periodization is, because I think the people listening kind of generally understand, hey, within the gym linear periodization, block periodization, whatever it is, but tactical periodization I would say fits almost under, I would say, a different umbrella just because it's not gym-based. It's trying to get the sport to elicit the demands you want. So it'd be kind of interesting to go down the road, kind of give us an overview of what it is, and then we can go a little deeper.

David Tenney4:00

Nice. Interesting because I think that a lot of times when I start this discussion, I talk about not just what it is but what it's not, right? And so I think there's so many misunderstandings of what tactical periodization actually is, right? So the first place I normally start is what it is not and what tactical periodization is not: the periodizing of tactics, first and foremost, which I think I always kind of try to state that caveat.

And really what it is, this is my perception because I think what I appreciate about tactical periodization and the group of people that have, under Vitor Frade, who have built on this methodology, it is a methodology. It is a way of seeing training design, building training weeks appropriately, the sequencing of training from day to day, from week to week, from month to month.

It's extremely holistic. So this is obviously my perception because I've gone back and forth to Porto a lot, but it is what I appreciate is this kind of living, breathing, changing, shifting methodology as the game changes and as the people that work with this methodology grow and evolve.

I think the starting point for me is that it is this unbreakable connection between the physical, the emotional, and the cognitive part of how we train and load players, which then impacts everything, right? So for me, that's the starting point is that it is not, again what it is not, it is not, hey, on a match day minus 4 we're going to work in small spaces and our GPS data is going to look like this and we're going to be more XL D cell dominant, and then on match day minus 3 we're going to work in big spaces and we're going to get some high running loads. And that is also not tactical periodization as well.

So it's really understanding that as we go and train a group of players, that there is this interconnection between what they're doing physically, what they're doing emotionally, what they're doing cognitively. And then as we select and decide what exercises we do from day to day and how we sequence them, understand where they're at across those three different domains. And then as we get to the end of the week and we're about to prepare them for the next game, how we're actually doing that to make sure that they are primed and ready to play and have a physical and mental emotional freshness going into the next game. So I think that's the, we call it the 30,000-foot view I guess. I don't know where you want to dig in from there.

James de Lacey7:14

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Plenty. Plenty. It's funny enough, as you mentioned, the on match day minus whatever we do, XL, DL, whatever, that's kind of how tactical periodization is sold. It's kind of sold, this is an endurance day, this is a strength day, et cetera. My only real exposure to I guess a somewhat tactical periodization approach was Eddie Jones and John Pryor with Japan Rugby for the 2015 World Cup. They looked to implement that. I have some notes in my notebook somewhere from talking with John about that.

And one of the big things I took out of what they were doing, as you mentioned earlier, kind of matching that physical and emotional, is for example, say play Saturday to Saturday, Monday is that quote-unquote maybe learning or installation day, kind of what they termed it. Then Tuesday may be more of the, I can't remember the term, but to say applying it. So it means that you would do a lot of your video analysis on Monday, because when you do video analysis before training, which I found myself sitting in video analysis, you almost fall asleep.

And you're doing that before you go out for, I don't know, a high-speed day. Who, I don't know if that's producing, I don't know where where that sits within your framework or not, if that's part of it.

But interesting to go into, as you mentioned obviously, it's not just GPS data for this is endurance day, this is a strength day. How does a week actually fit and look and set within a tactical periodization approach compared to maybe a traditional week structure?

David Tenney9:34

And I think again, it's not that there are certain physical loads you might aim to hit, but again, it's that they're interconnected with this emotional and cognitive feel. And for example, this day you talk about in the minus 4, yes, are there X cells and D cells within that session? Yes, there are. But that's also emotionally a day around competition, right? And it's also a day where there's less complexity of exercises on the field.

So you're really driving this, we're going to play in these small spaces, we're going to play in these kind of micro principles of our play. But we're going to compete and the players are going to figure out how to win those games, and they're going to be low complexity because it's still relatively early in the week.

I think to your point, that's also oftentimes a day when there's less video, right? Because you're kind of just out of the previous game, you're not quite ready for the next game. So there's a little bit less cognitive load on that day in any video leading up to the session. Then it's about competition versus then the next day when we're really in bigger spaces. And that's, we oftentimes talk about how we're merging the physical side with the level of complexity of exercises that we want on that day.

So yes, it's bigger spaces and yes, we're hitting some max speeds and some high-speed running and some sprinting, but it's really around higher complexity exercises with more of a cognitive load that day. And maybe that's going to be how we're going to build up from goalkeeper against the next opponent. And it's set up in big spaces being pressed by a group that's going to look like the next opponent, which has a high complexity to it, because now we're trying to play with our goalkeeper to build out the back and then break the other team's pressure and attack the other side.

And so that's, unlike the previous day on the match day minus 4 when it's low complexity, it's high competition, you need this kind of calmness to that minus 3 because you are playing out of pressure, you are trying to break the other team's press. So again, cognitively, what kind of demand are we putting on the players on a day like that versus the previous day?

And then as you get closer to the game, as you said, there's probably a little bit more video in terms of prepping for the opponent. I think the minus 2 is probably the trickiest day to manage, because if you come out of the minus 3 with these higher loads in this bigger complexity session, the minus 2, you're starting to unload. And I think that's the day you have to figure out how to unload the best. And that tends to be a shorter session again, with a smaller on-field cognitive load and physical load as well.

And then your match day minus 1, I think the emotions of that day in terms of walking off the field very confident, very routine. Most teams have a very, very consistent match day minus 1, right, which I think is

Super important where the players, it's a day of psychological safety. You want the players to walk off the field confident. You want the loads to be low. You're trying to walk off the field with this physical and emotional and cognitive freshness where the player is going to be responsive and adaptive the next day to meet any demands they're going to have.

So I think that kind of again shows the interconnectedness between those three areas as you're planning out the week. So to be very general, if you're looking to kind of maximize maybe speed, intensity outputs, you're looking for a lower complexity day in terms of the drills and games you're using on the field. I mean again I think traditionally with tactical periodization the minus 2 day has been what's termed more of a speed, a short volume of high-speed work with probably less overall complexity.

However, I think again on your day of high complexity when you're playing, typically that's when you're going to play your 11 v 11. If you're driving the speed of that day, you might often have players that hit a lot of higher speeds on that particular day. So I think that's when you're playing in big spaces and you play very good soccer football, hopefully you're also hitting peak speeds on that day as well.

But I think that's again where there's not necessarily a hard and fast rule. I think again part of the misunderstanding of tactical periodization is like minus 2 everyone has hit a peak speed on this day. I don't think it's as hard and fast of a rule as I think sometimes it is presented.

James de Lacey14:49

What's your thoughts and philosophy around that game day minus one? So there's obviously the traditional kind of most like a captain's run on that day, which can be more kind, as you mentioned, low intensity walk through, maybe. There's obviously been schools of thought now where some teams completely just get rid of training on that day completely. No captain's run. Some like to use that day almost as like a quote unquote speed day and make it short and sharp. Where's your kind of thought and philosophy lie around that kind of day before the game?

David Tenney14:49

I think teams get into this planning around the minus 2 and minus 1, I think need to be paired together really well first and foremost. So I think oftentimes as you get the minus 2 and minus 1, now you're really preparing for the next opponent and you have to decide. I usually tell coaching staffs or advise coaching staffs one of those two days must be a fairly significant physical and cognitive underload, but one can't be because you're still trying to give them information to prepare them for the next game.

So it's you're getting the next game, you want to give them information, how much information you give them. And I think your point, the teams that do the captain's runs on field, there's no more information about the next opponent. They're now it's about sending them out there. Maybe they do a walk through, but it's extremely low load across the board and we want to get freshness. And maybe then there's more information on the minus 2.

But I think also you can flip it where if the minus 3 is a really close certain percentage of a match load across the board, now the minus 2 has to be more of a really strong unload. And then that means the match day minus 1, maybe you're giving them some information and a lot of the coaching staffs that I've worked with, they'll do some introductory activities and then maybe it's just a little bit of a 11 v zero with some concepts around how we're going to break the other team's pressure the next day. And oftentimes that's paired to the video that they're watching before.

So I think the minus 2 and minus 1 are kind of each coaching staff approaches those two different. One of those two needs to be a fairly strong unload probably. But I think that's a discussion that you have to have with each coach as you go in.

James de Lacey14:49

It's what's interesting is soccer is probably I don't, maybe I'd say one of the few sports that really does almost train every day of the week. Because you have, well I actually want to ask you about the first two days after a game, but I mean if you're doing say if you're taking the day after the game off as an example, you're probably training Monday through Friday and then game Saturday, whereas many other sports you typically at least in experience, you typically have a day's break.

So how does those first two days look? And do you think there is a place for I don't know days off in the week within a tactical periodization structure, or is it even necessary when it's well?

David Tenney18:11

There's always considerations for days off depending on where the team is at and if you're always judging where your group is at and having a pulse for where, again, are they mentally tired? Are they physically tired? Are they emotionally tired? You're kind of determining when they might need a day off. And I think again that's where oftentimes the minus 2 becomes a really really low day at times depending on what your minus 3 looks like.

I think traditionally within the tactical periodization model the match day plus 1 oftentimes is off. And that's again that's just as much emotional, cognitive as much as is physical because we do know that again the players are most sore and beat up the match day plus 2. It's to me that's a really interesting discussion because I think people that follow quote the science on the physical side will say hey we're going to do our recovery on the match day plus 1 and the match day plus 2 we're going to take off because physically that's better. And the research appears to suggest that's true.

James de Lacey19:30

There's just a new paper that was published just on that topic in month.

David Tenney19:34

However, from the practicality side, how many times you've had a Saturday night game and the last thing you want to do is come in Sunday morning at 11:00 and you just, again, you emotionally just you're not in a place you're ready to do anything and you just you kind of go through the motions and this recovery.

James de Lacey19:59

Or we've taken an 8 hour bus ride and got back at 1:00 a.m.

David Tenney20:02

And again there's, but it's all it's all in the name of like well from the sport science says it's better to do it that way. It's better to do a regen on the plus 1 and then take the plus 2 off. The issue there, I mean I think there's several issues of that that particular model is if you come in on the plus 1, you take the plus 2 off and now you're coming in on the plus 3 after a day off.

Because again on the plus 1 if you've played a lot of minutes the day before, your engagement in that session could easily be extremely low on that day and now you basically have two days off and now you're trying to get into this minus 4 day that should be about competition, that should be about driving this emotional part of how you want to compete. And that's a challenge.

I think as you get through the course of the season, any time you give a group a day off, the day after that, there's always this sluggishness to really get in and get going again. And it affects it. And again, there's oftentimes one of the challenges within our environment within MLS is that we're still playing through the summer months and it's extremely hot and you can have games in the high 30s and 40° and you might choose to give them two days off just because you're traveling, it's hot. That's to try to gain some freshness back.

You may give them two days off and then you understand it's going to be sluggish on that minus 4 coming back in, but you're very intentionally doing that. But again, I think from your normal week to week from a tactical periodization standpoint, the plus 1 is totally off to kind of cognitively and emotionally recharge and then come back in on the plus 2. Being extremely careful, understanding that there are still very much in a recovery state even on the plus 2.

But I think again cognitively they're in a little bit better space than they would be on the plus 1. So now you can start giving them a little bit more information. And I think coaches a lot of times prefer that because they can go back, they can take the day off, they can watch the game, then they can come in the plus 2 and start providing some information when normally that day would be off.

So I think I found the coaches like being able to kind of shut down and then watch a game in the plus 1 and then on the plus 2 now they can do their match review. Where if you take that day off now you're not actually addressing the previous game until the match day plus 3.

So when we do it that way, then the match day plus three, the previous game can be moved on from and now it's about competing in emotions and small spaces, etc. on that plus three.

James de Lacey23:03

I tend to like that structure too. I had a question in the live chat here that will follow on actually perfectly from this because we've talked a lot about in-season but we haven't talked about how this is used pre-season if there's any differences or even offseason. For, maybe some Americans use that as well, but he's asking when you're in offseason far from the next competition event, do you think it's a good strategy to go broad and try to improve as many qualities as possible or to focus on strengths or limiters?

David Tenney23:33

Good question. I think what tactical periodization was born out of was a model where you're almost playing year round as well, right? So I think most of the European clubs now are in that phase where players are really only getting three to four weeks off, and so now it's really about restoration, recovery.

I think one of the main parts of tactization is the advantage of specificity. And specificity is a mandate. And I think that also scares performance people quite often when they talk about the overemphasis of specificity. That's really scary to people. But the offseason is a period where you probably can be less specific because you're not preparing from game to game. So you can address some qualities that as an athlete players may need to address.

When you get into pre-season, the tactical periodization is very clear that there is no pre-season. You're either out of season or you're in season because with this morpho cycle, they will call it, players respond to patterns. Players respond to patterns of loads, right? And so it's about getting them into responding to this pattern that you set for them right off the bat. Right? So right away your minus 5, minus 4, minus 3 are going to look the same from the very beginning of what you normally call pre-season, early season, we'll call it.

But, at times, in my instructor's course, I remember being scolded for using the term pre-season because according to tactical periodization there's only the season and the out of season. So it's very much if I believe the players respond to the patterns, I want to get them used to the patterns as soon as possible and they will respond very positively.

And so there's not, which is also why you have the stories of Jose Mourinho going into Chelsea and talking about, put your running shoes away. We're not going to do runs just to do runs. It's about how do we build our game model and then create this pattern of work that you will respond to over time.

So I think that's a departure from your normal periodization model.

James de Lacey23:51

How, because you mentioned obviously out of season, so overall you're running a similar structure regardless, but obviously out of season you don't have games every weekend. So how do you account for that within the week structure? Are you doing some kind of game simulation then from the first week?

David Tenney26:32

You're saying out of season or pre-season?

James de Lacey26:34

Out of season or pre, whenever you don't have games basically, because I think within soccer you probably have games pre-season as well.

David Tenney26:41

So I think again, if we see the whole season as this living thing, then this offseason is probably this period of recovery which the players will need, especially as there is more and more games. I do think that this long-term response to load and requirement of recovery is super important to address with this offseason period.

And then once you're in the pre-season, you are trying to mirror those loads. And so yes, you might not have games right off the bat, but you're going to be doing again this higher complexity 11 to 11 type exercise on a Saturday if you're always playing Saturday. As an example, we just came back from a World Cup break. And as we restart our training here, we are about to restart with Wednesday-Saturdays right off the bat.

And so as it restarted, Wednesday was the first, we just played LAFC last Wednesday for the first game back. And the Wednesdays became the high complexity loading days as we got back. And Wednesdays and Saturdays were high complexity, higher loading days as we went through as we restarted post-World Cup break.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be a game. It has to be something that feels like a game. And I think that's one of the things that I think we've implemented here that I really picked up from the methodology is that there has to be a different emotional feel every single day, right? And so does it have to be a game against an opponent?

No, but does it have to feel like it? Yes. So we can do, and we did do this several times, you go in the stadium and you play an inter-squad match in your stadium with real referees. Maybe four, I think we did four times 15 minutes. We talked about doing six times 10 minutes versus four times 15 minutes to try to make sure that the tempo stayed at a MLS match rate by having these short bouts of work, but they're doing it in the stadium in uniforms with a referee. So now it feels like it's competition.

James de Lacey29:00

I love that. I love that idea. And just the competitive aspect, because I think we all know when just even just a really general or broad back example, even within speed training, having competition within speed training, athletes, you're going to run faster. So even just having those small competitive things throughout the week and specific days you're doing that, you're going to drive intent with that too.

I think maybe not a push back on tactical periodization, but maybe just some general observations is, have you seen it be taken almost too far in the, okay, actually let's start here. How do you marry then tactical periodization with what you're trying to get maybe physical changes out of the athlete? So are you doing more supplementary, say, quote-unquote traditional conditioning on top of what is happening? Are you marrying those on certain cases or are you trying to get everything out of the athlete in terms of physical adaptation just from I guess the specific nature of the sport and the training sessions?

David Tenney30:04

I think that's where, come back to the specificity part too, right? I think the individualization of tactical periodization comes down to really understanding from a real specificity standpoint what does each athlete need based on their position within the way the team wants to play, right?

So to me, when I talk about game model and preparation and things like that, the easiest example for people to get their heads around is, let's say Pep Guardiola's Man City versus Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool, right? In Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool, what sort of physical capacities do people need to press? They need to press, right? And it's this pressing, it's this high energy. And all their exercises are geared around we have to press an X amount of time, we have to try to win the ball back an X amount of time.

And there are certain positions that are very highly geared towards pressing and having a really high physical output in certain parts of the field. But it's very specific in terms of these 15 to 20 meter sprints they might have to make. There's a density of that amount of work. And I think understanding that helps create exercises that bring those physical demands out.

Again, I do want to talk about the specificity piece because I do think it's so misunderstood in terms of, on your minus 4, your low complexity, high competition, small space day, center back, central defenders really struggle with those days. My perception is because oftentimes coaches create these exercises, again I think you talked about the mindset around it's the strength day, it's the, what's the other term I think, the tension day, the strength day.

James de Lacey32:19

The endurance day, the speed day, that kind of stuff.

David Tenney32:22

Yeah. So in what people call the strength day, you can create this density of XLs and D cells that look nothing like what a center back, central defender actually has in the game. He may make a max acceleration once every two to three minutes. It could be shorter, but let's say that the moments of their max accelerations are far more spread out than, let's say, a striker that's pressing or a holding midfielder that's trying to close down space.

Oftentimes also the center backs, they're 6 foot 2, 200 pound guys that now you're asking to accelerate and decelerate around a really small field, which lacks specificity for what that player has to do within a match. Now, oftentimes then the response might be from a performance staff, we got to get in the gym, we got to get this guy strong, we got to really build his robustness. Or you create a training session where the density of XLs and D cells aren't quite as high for that particular player because that's not actually what they have to do in the game.

And especially as that athlete gets older, they tend to tolerate those differences in densities less and less and less. And so those type of athletes typically need a little bit more recovery time than some of your other players. And so to me, that's understanding the specificity around training. It comes down to within our game model, within positionally, and also that player's age and injury history and all those things. That's specificity. This player's, our league is really known for these center backs that are in their early 30s that

are pretty beat up and come to our league after a long career somewhere else and they just can't tolerate the same level of work. And understanding that is specificity.

James de Lacey34:25

So, how do you structure a training session then around that? Because I'm just trying to think practically where if you're setting up say some smaller games like that with high XL DL and you have your main players going through, are you then creating another group with a different drill that's going through something else? How does that come to?

David Tenney34:43

I think that's where your training intervention comes in. That's where the support science side comes in to talk about that player might do a smaller volume of that type work. They still if you decide you want to do something that's a 5v5 that's in small spaces, they might do that, but you might also have to manage that player through the loads.

He might do, especially there's some coaches that like to do a ton of 1v1, 2v2 type exercises. I recently worked with a coach that loved his Tuesday 1v1s and 2v2s and part of that was really convincing him is that that's as much as I know you want a central defender to train these actions these 1v1 actions when you do whatever three times 3 to four minutes of these 1v1s now getting a density of work that he doesn't get in the game and so it's really fatiguing to him and so we really either have to not have him do the full volume of those or we have to try to manage it where his density within the session is less than the others.

And then where does or does let's just call it traditional conditioning does it fit into I guess your model of tactical periodization? I mean, I think what I would say across the board when it comes to this specificity piece is that can someone do non-specific work? Yes, you can do non-specific work. But I often will always find that not the more non-specific the work is for an athlete, the more consequences will happen to that athlete. While you might also gain something where you want to gain it, you will lose something where you want to lose it.

I think that's the best way to it's funny because I think that and the postgame top up to me is the best example of that. This postgame top up of players that aren't playing probably does something. I even say to my staff here because there's still this belief that we have to do this postgame top up and at some level we probably do have to do the postgame top up but let's be really honest that it's not doing it's not giving us all the advantages that we think that it's giving us because it is about running at the right time at the right place at the right speed once you're within the game and just purely only the physical and isolation. It will give us something, but it's never as impactful as we wish that it was.

It would be great. It would be great if it was impact. It would be great if we could all do our top ups and that would allow us to play 90 minutes. But we do know that you can do top ups all you want, but if a player has not played 90 minutes in a game, the load put on them on him physically, cognitively, emotionally is not replicated in the top ups. So, by all means, go ahead and do it. But it's not actually preparing the player to stay 90 minutes of fit as we might hope that it is.

James de Lacey37:56

It kind of sounds like a lot of tactical periodization or at least your view on it is almost kind of blends with this dynamical systems approach.

Kind of this idea of perception, affordances, all that kind of stuff. Just kind of seeing what being able to put everything in context into the environment versus taking things out and trying to isolate them. So is everything you're is basically everything you're trying to throw a week trying to be as contextual as possible to the position to the athlete and to the game essentially.

David Tenney38:31

A thousand percent. I think that and that's part of the element of tactical periodization that I think is misunderstood is that it is about interactions and it is about creating the environment the players are going to respond to, right? And so,

as an example, if I were to play against a team that like a, let's say you're going to you're about to play a Jurgen club Liverpool or or a Red Bull style pressing team and you want to prepare, you want to prepare your group for that. It's going to be a high tempo, lots of sprinting, maybe lower total distance, lots of sprinting. Well, how do you do that? Well, you might choose most of your exercises for the week to be on a far narrower field, but full length with a lot of space behind because that's where the space is going to be.

They're going to have to make those same type runs as center backs are going to have to be concerned about the balls being played behind them. They're going to have to be get used to being pressed in a very quickly and with high intensity. And so creating a more narrow field is going to kind of recreate that. And I think that's very much the

as you said, the constraints-led type approach. And again, it's about I think if I were to say my biggest takeaway as as an American/northern European going into the tactical periodization mindset because there's a lot of overlap with the Spanish model as well is that the Portuguese the Spanish as as coaches they had a sense for the emotional side of the game.

that I find Americans and northern Europeans just seem to lack, right? And so they talk a lot about the feelings and

and it was funny this is going to go on a little bit of a tangent but I remember as I'm going through learning about the methodology and all that I heard Jose Mourinho talk on leadership right and he's being interviewed on leadership and the question they asked him was tell us about your first memories in the sport like how you got to where you are. Tell us about your first memories in the sport.

And Jose Mourinho, his father was a pro player and assistant coach or maybe a head coach as well in Portugal. And Jose Mourinho says, "My first clear memories in the sport were going with my dad on game day in Portugal and being in the locker room before the game and hearing the cleats go across the floor as the players walked out to the field and the smell of the balm that the players put on their legs before they went out." I remember thinking I no one from America is going to say is going to explain that as their first memory.

There was such a sensory explanation, and then talking about the feel of the emotions as the players that they went out and the sensory and emotions of that. I feel like the Portuguese and Spanish are wired in that way where they have a clear pulse on where the team is at and they're thinking about emotions and they're tying emotions to the physical side in such a really unique special way that I think is is what also I think missed from the methodology which is why we say it's not about the strength day and the endurance day and the activation day etc. It's this merging of this physical and emotional together in a way that really makes sense.

James de Lacey42:16

I love that. And to continue on that note then in terms of the say the the strength training in the gym, how does that then fit within the model?

David Tenney42:16

I mean I view it as the same thing. I think it's a it's obviously a very non-specific type of work that's supplementary to what the players need on the field. And I think it's seen as very supplementary. And again, I think this is also where it's relatively controversial because most people I think involved in strength training don't necessarily come from soccer and this methodology is built around soccer right.

So I think when we're talking about strength strength qualities power etc again I think there's a specificity that has to be applied to that. At the same time soccer as a sport is so is such a technical sport that I think you can look at Spain is in isolation it goes back to in isolation getting a player stronger more powerful etc would it does that make that a better athlete that's better able to perform yeah potentially maybe but then we look at let's say Spain versus France in the World Cup France by far more athletic, by far more powerful, man for man, better athletes across the field, but as a group of players playing football, Spain, France couldn't touch Spain, right?

And so that is also a uniqueness to this sport that I think we have to talk about as well. I'm not going to say that any other sport is is going to be will have the same outputs utilizing this whole periodization model. What I will say is I think the strength training can have a place from a supplementary perspective as players have some real deficiencies they may need to work on or let's say for instance the 32-year-old central defender that cannot tolerate the XLs and D cells more but but also has to maintain his strength and so supplementary work in the gym early in the week may be really beneficial for that.

James de Lacey42:16

So yeah, it it kind of marries over as you mentioned applying to it's kind of built for soccer but even just some of the principles even for combat sports I mean it's been used in rugby just this idea of more contextual environments constraints that I think a lot of at least even in my experience in rugby sometimes we can get when you maybe you're running through plays you're always running through the same field size no defenders at all maybe defenders with head shields in front of but no real change in context of what's happening in front.

Same rhythm, same pace, always going forward. Same thing in sparring. Maybe you're always sparring or going live against the same people, so you kind of get a familiarity versus going against different opponents, different tempos, different paces, which I think is missing in a lot of different training environments. And I think that tactical periodization kind of almost forces it, forces it out of someone to get in there because of the way the model's built.

David Tenney45:26

I think there's the other interesting thing: there's what they call a series of binomials that are kind of the underpinnings of tactics that's really interesting to me as well. You have this, you've kind of just alluded to it as a coach in building your training week, you're always in this duality, this binomial of redundancy versus variability, right?

And I've heard, I've worked with fitness coaches that have been in the Premier League and a Portuguese coach will roll in who uses this methodology and say to the fitness coach, "You can never have the same warm-up within a season ever. You can never repeat the same warm-up." Which is quite a challenge.

And I think that doesn't mean that it has to be random and chaotic, but I think again it's trying to push that the players know that nothing's ever going to be repeated fully. There's going to be a little tweak, a little change, a little bit something that's going to be a little bit different to challenge them. So they can't just go through the warm-up, shut off.

James de Lacey46:59

Where do you find the balance of that though between maybe routine, like some athletes might want to do the same thing before a game all the time? Is that kind of...

David Tenney47:07

That is the balance. That's, again, I think that is the variability versus redundancy. There has to be an element of it feeling comfortable and safe, but also understand there's going to be these little challenges. And it was funny when I was taking the master's course, you spend a week in Portugal, and one of the things that I think popped up to me was that right off the bat the warm-ups felt totally different because the warm-ups, after 90 seconds, 2 minutes, it was no longer "We go through the ladders and do X and then we go through the ladders and do Y, then we go through the ladders and do Z."

It was "We go through the ladders once, we go through the ladders twice, and now we're trying to mirror what the person in the middle is doing." And again, I think that's back to your kind of constraints approach in the environment where now we're responding to the person that's next to us, right? It became three lines and the two lines on the outside have to mirror whatever the person in the middle is doing right off the bat.

And the person in the middle is trying to fool the people on the outside and have this kind of deception where I'm trying to fool and deceive the people because that's the game, right?

The game is about reading interactions, deception, recognizing patterns. And so right from the very beginning, the warm-ups are set up to do that, which I thought was really, really fascinating.

James de Lacey47:07

That's one of the biggest changes I made throughout the different teams I work with. I mainly, I think I learned it from Vern Gambetta, this idea that you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the warm-up and the actual, like when the warm-up ends and the training starts. And so a lot of, I've started playing a lot of games as part of warm-ups and you can just go straight into it.

It's literally just a walking game initially because you can get them moving walking. We'll do kids games, different ball games, tag games, just everything. Different grid sizes, all that kind of stuff. And it's awesome just for engagement, getting them laughing, getting the energy up. And then you finish playing the games and you still can have coaches input into the games as well, depending on what the games are.

When it becomes more, I guess quote unquote, closer to the sport, you can have coaches coming in, "Where should you, how can you create more space," whatever the principle is that they're trying to bring in. And it involves the sport coaches too. So it's not this isolated thing like "Oh, I just go warm up," because you probably see a lot in soccer too. They go run laps around the field and then they go do, I don't know, stretches in a huddle or whatever it is and it's kind of this isolated environment that doesn't prepare them.

David Tenney49:41

To me, it's the concept around player interactions, right? All team sports have a high level of player interactions. And so you want to start those interactions as soon as you can within the training session. And so I think if you do your standard warm-up where we are training this physical quality in isolation for 20 minutes, there's potentially no player interaction, right? And I think that's actually one of the foundations of the Spanish model and the Barcelona model.

In fact, there's a paper from the FC Barcelona Barca hub group where it's something like "Football Training: Training Interactions, Not Actions." We're not training soccer actions, we're training soccer interactions, which I think is a subtle but profound difference.

James de Lacey49:41

So on that topic, if, I don't know if it is or not, but say max velocity is maybe one of your key performance indicators that you're looking at with your players and you're looking to develop that quality, you kind of mention you're looking at it in context mostly, but does that mean that you're training to improve that quality, I guess, within the training session, within the drills themselves versus having say a 10, 20 minute dedicated session to...

David Tenney51:17

I think, yes. I think one, if you create the right training sessions, hopefully you'll get it out of that training session. That's also what I will tell my staff. I told my staff here sometimes is that if you have to put everyone in the line and have them get max velocity exposure because you didn't get it in the training session, you probably haven't created a very good training session because you should have these, again, these constraints where you are eliciting those sorts of runs, right?

And you could do something where you can have, you're playing within two lines and the defenders can't drop beneath the line until the ball breaks the line and then once the ball breaks the line it becomes the sprints and you will elicit some of that running. It doesn't mean you can never do any exposure to some max velocity work. But again, I've done an exercise post warm-up or even post possession where we'll do something again where I've got a ball in either hand five meters from two small goals and then a 30 meter end line.

And as I drop the ball, two players sprint out. They've got to play the ball in the goal and then beat their teammate to this 30 meter mark. And again, it's engaging to them. They enjoy it. And we always say you have to score the goal in the small goal and beat your opponent, your teammate, to the line to win. We go twice. If you win both, you beat your opponent. So if you lose the first one, then you can't lose the second one. And it's something that tends to elicit this almost speed in the mid-90s every time.

But I think also you find, when they're, the easiest way to get that speed exposure is to make it a competition against their teammate in a way that's stimulating to them. It's interesting where that sort of exercise I described will elicit some max exposure type runs more than just, "Hey, we're going to do buildups and then we're going to hit those cones 60 meters from here. We want everyone to hit a max exposure." There's some players that just won't because they do need that interaction as well.

James de Lacey53:44

What's your experience on the idea that it's important to kind of hit that above 90% max velocity each week for a certain number of reps, I guess, in the idea of hamstring health and performance?

David Tenney54:00

Yeah, it's a great question. I think again, in isolation, should players hit it? Yeah, they probably should. However, we also are now living in this world where a lot of training sessions have become, and this is the way the teams want to train and play, it's very accel dominant. Really, if you look at it started I think a lot with the Pep Guardiola way of training of these rondos in these small tight spaces and it's a ton of accels and decels.

If we are overloading players with a ton of accels and decels, but they haven't gone above 90, do we want to chase that on that particular day or week, or are they fatigued because I think they become overloaded by the number of accels or decels within that session? So I think in isolation should they hit it? Yes, it would be nice if they did.

It was kind of refreshing because I think on one of the recent Darren Burgess, Jason Weber podcasts, they talked about talking to Greg King over in China who actually admitted as an Australian sport science guy, "I'm not as concerned about hitting the max exposure as I used to."

And I think I've kind of felt the same way. But I think again there's a specificity to it. If I'm a winger that I have to hit that and I haven't done it in weeks, I'm probably concerned about that. If I am a holding midfielder that very rarely ever sprints eight meters per second in a game and I'm being overloaded with all these accels, as a practitioner outside, do I need to chase that speed exposure if I think that player is fatigued and they don't hit those speeds in a game that often anyways, right?

So I think that's what we need to look at. And that's a lot of context more than just "I need someone to hit that speed every week," because I don't necessarily think that is always true depending on the context of the state of that player coming into the week.

James de Lacey56:10

Interesting. And you also, I guess the context of the sprint too. If again, if you're looking at the kind of constraints approach, sprinting while looking over your shoulder because the ball's being chipped over, things like that as well also play a role in—I guess, because I guess you could say, I guess muscle function potentially at least how everything moves just because upper body's twisted, upper lower separation with that sprint. So now is just hitting a straight linear 90 plus% sprint going to be a quote unquote vaccine or whatever to these different contexts in the game? I don't know.

David Tenney56:42

I think that's where you saw, I mean that's obviously some of the stuff John Prior was doing when he was with Eddie Johns and some of the Franz Bosch type stuff of some of the twisting like the other shoulder. And max speed work is really interesting with soccer as well because it's not that often where I just have to sprint 40 yards and not think about changing my stride length, not thinking about what's around me at all.

Typically there is again a level of interaction of I might get the ball played into my feet. I might have to stop and decelerate at any given moment. That's why I think positionally there are times where I'm a winger, I'm wide, there's space behind the opponent and I just take off. But that's again it's very contextual based on certain positions and certain times.

James de Lacey57:37

You obviously mentioned you were with the NBA as well. Was that before you got into tactical periodization?

David Tenney57:43

Yeah. But again, the interesting thing for me with the NBA getting back to some of those binomials was that we talked about, we touched on the variability redundancy. I think what stuck out as I looked at tactical periodization was this, the other binomial is the individual versus the collective, right? And working along that continuum on a daily basis of sometimes we prioritize the individual, sometimes we prioritize the collective.

And being in the NBA was I learned this so much more deeply or this resonated with me because I think when you're in soccer, when you're in rugby, when in some of these sports, it is about the collective and everything is collective, collective, collective and sometimes you forget that individuals win games. Then you go to the NBA and it's all about the individual.

James de Lacey58:38

The NBA one guy.

David Tenney58:40

But the whole structure is, in my role in the NBA was how do I build the right ecosystem around each one of these individual players to give them what they need? So they're going to have the right assistant coach with the right strength coach with the right physical therapist. Do they need a dietitian? Do they need a psychologist? What sort of support do we have to bring in from outside services to build these ecosystems?

It is all about building these teams around each individual to get what the individual needs. And it's, we can go off the tangent of how team meals and team meetings and travel and some of these things where when you're in soccer and football we're all together and it's about the collective, but when you're in the NBA it is about managing the individual all because ultimately those individuals are who wins you championships.

James de Lacey59:40

So you're saying then in the NBA when you traveled it was they kind of ate on their own and did everything on their own.

David Tenney59:45

It's funny because we have this big discussion all the time with our league coming in, with our league having players from all these different countries come in. They have very clear, especially the South Americans, very clear ideas around how we travel, how we eat, team meals, et cetera. And the American player tends to want more freedom than I think a lot of the South Americans, Europeans want.

And so the South Americans will come in and they will want everyone eats together, we eat the same food, we meet at this time. And I will often say to them, "Guys, in the NBA, there's no team meals because it's geared around the individual. This guy wants to eat at 6:00. This guy wants to eat at 8:00. And this guy wants to eat at 9:00. And this guy wants steak and this guy wants fish and this guy wants pasta because that's what works for them and that's professional."

Like in my mind that's equally as professional as we're going to sit down at a team meal in the hotel and the dietitian is going to walk all of us through the line and give each player exactly what they think they need for that day. Like, okay, there is a level of professionalism to that. But when it comes to individualization, every player should know what they need. And it's every player's totally different. And we want to embrace that as well.

And then when you go to the games, there can be three buses that go to games and you go on the bus that gets you to the arena when you want to be at the arena, or when you need to be at the arena. We're not all getting on the bus all together as a collective and going to the game. You go when you need to be there. And that is also professional.

So, I think that's that duality of individual versus collective that we, based on our history where we've been, we've been pushed towards this collective side of the continuum really strongly.

James de Lacey1:01:14

How do you balance that with maybe younger players or newer players who maybe don't have that experience or background to really know? Like I know the Crusaders in New Zealand they really push an, I guess you could say athlete-led style training where athletes have a lot of input into how their training is done, but obviously younger players when coming through academy who haven't had the experience or maybe don't know yet. How do you balance that with giving them the freedom versus not?

David Tenney1:01:14

It's clear about, it is clearly about education. And it's about trust. Like when, it's interesting because when you get players that come from South America where everything has been controlled for them and they literally don't know what to do if you said, "Hey, tonight it's going to be dinner on your own. Everyone go get what do you need?" Those players, they want to be controlled. But that also comes from an environment where it's a lack of trust, right?

So I think you have to educate and trust and then obviously go over them what their decisions are. And that's the constant education that happens. But I think that's, we're obviously moving towards a more autonomous independent society and I think giving players information, education and then hopefully they earn your trust over time, you end up in my opinion with a better professional than players getting used to being told you will eat this, you will eat this, you will eat this.

James de Lacey1:03:13

Do you see that? Do you find that reflects in their style of play too? Like they're almost less creative. They have to be kind of told and play in a structure versus being more, what would you say, open or creative? I guess.

David Tenney1:03:32

It's interesting where I feel, or did that whole controlling structure happen because you had these creative players that didn't really want control and so the coaches actually wanted to control them, right? I think clearly if you look at, obviously Diego Maradona, one of the potentially the most creative player of all time, could you actually control him?

James de Lacey1:03:55

Creative too.

David Tenney1:03:56

And if you actually did fully control him, he might not be the same player he was.

So that is that piece. Like again it's that the individual collective. Like at some point you want to allow the individual to be the individual because that's where the creativity comes. And can you, but at the same time it always has to be within the scope of what's best for the team.

But that's where I think it's interesting because I think your really top NBA coaches, going back to the NBA experience, they understood that. Interesting little things like in my first week in the NBA there's no unified training gear. Everyone wore something a little bit different. And some guys wore a black shirt, some guys wore a gray shirt, some guys wore a blue shirt. And some guys wore long pants, some guys wore shorts, some guys, and I remember thinking like, how does anyone know who's on anyone's team? It was not like that within college basketball.

But the point was is that the coach knew that like I'm not going to fight this battle. I'm just going to let players wear whatever they want to wear because they need to feel like individuals and they want to feel like something a little bit different. I'm not going to be overly uniform here because I'm going to need it somewhere else. So, I'm going to cater to the individual in this case around the athlete.

James de Lacey1:05:32

It's such an interesting idea around player freedom. You mentioned Diego Maradona, creative off the field too. You see some of the best athletes in the world and a lot of them have similar traits.

Like if you look at combat sports like Jon Jones, one of the greatest fighters of all time, but you look at his police record or his actions outside of the sport and it's not so great. You look at Conor McGregor, same thing. It's almost like can you tame it and should you tame it?

And at what cost? And that's the question. Like I don't know if you have any insights into that. Like is that something you—like even the Diego Maradona example, could you or would you like even if you tried, could you even—that would be the other question as well.

David Tenney1:06:21

I don't know. I mean, my sense says no, you don't want to curb it that much. But I think that again, that's where that's the Phil Jacksons and the Steve Kerrs and some of these legendary coaches where they know—obviously everyone's watched the Chicago Bulls documentary where how Phil Jackson manages Dennis Rodman I think is the best example. Hey, we're going to let Dennis Rodman go to Las Vegas three days in the middle of the season because that's just what he needs.

That might be harder and harder today I think based on the number of games and the stress we're putting on players and some of those things. But player freedom I think is a really interesting piece because I think coaches understanding that—and I think within our sport, the ecosystem of Real Madrid I think is showing the struggles of having how coaches deal with that.

Real Madrid is now essentially an NBA team, and they're really hard to manage, right? Because that's what we're—they all want to be individuals. They all want to be their own individuals. They all want to be the guy. And how do you manage that?

James de Lacey1:07:37

That's some tough coaching questions as well. But David, where I got to let you go just in case you got a bunch of work and stuff and training to do, but where can people find and follow you and who you working with now so people can follow the team?

David Tenney1:07:37

So right now I'm working as senior director of health and performance for Real Salt Lake MLS and the Utah Royals and the women's side, Utah soccer. And probably the best place to follow me is just on LinkedIn. That's probably my most active social media side. But yeah, I want to thanks for having me on and be able to chat through all these topics.

James de Lacey1:07:37

No, I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming on. It would be cool if you were still in Austin, but either way, we'll have to try to come out to Utah at some point, too, and come check it out and everything.