Deciphering, understanding and optimising athlete movement efficiency with Matt Jordan

This week’s Pacey Performance Podcast guest is Matt Jordan. Throughout his career, Matt has consulted with more than 30 Olympic and World Championship medallists, and he frequently provides his expertise to high-performance sport organisations. Matt has been a strength and conditioning coach and applied sport scientist working with international athletes for over six Olympic Winter Games. In addition to being the Director of Sport Science at the Canadian Sport Institute Calgary, Matt is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary.

On the podcast, Matt discusses a topic he wrote about in High Performance Training for Sports (2nd Edition) – efficiency of movement. Not only does Matt define what efficiency of movement is, but he also explains how experts apply it to training programmes. He also dives into the strength training framework for mechanical efficiency, and how isometric training should be adapted to apply to specific sports. Continuing the technical side of things, Matt also talks about loading for technical efficiency.

Matt also talks about some of the psychological aspects of sport science, such as why coaches need to remember that they are ‘servants of performance’ and not become transfixed on their own particular way of doing things. In a similar vein, Matt speaks about how coaches can detach from irrelevant information and see a problem for what it is, and avoid the pitfalls of following the same model again and again. To hear all this insight and much more, hit the play button now.

This week’s topics:

• What is efficiency of movement?
• Applying efficiency of movement to training programmes
• The strength training framework for mechanical efficiency
• Isometric training, and how specific exercises need to be for certain sports
• Why coaches need to remember that they are ‘servants of performance’
• How to detach from irrelevant information and see a problem for what it is
• Loading for technical efficiency
• How to avoid the pitfalls of being transfixed on a specific model