141: Sam Portland on the Power of “Speed Gate Golf” on Injury Prevention and Performance | Sponsored by SimpliFaster - a podcast by Joel Smith, Just-Fly-Sports.com

Today’s episode features UK physical preparation coach Sam Portland.



Sam has been a strength coach on the elite level for nearly a decade, working with premiership rugby, Olympians, and international competitors ranging from hockey to track and field.  He was first introduced to me by Keir Wenham-Flatt in our podcast together, where Keir mentioned Sam’s experience with “speed gate golf”.



Sam is a forward thinking coach who got started in the coaching game very early and has a knack for the intuition of developing athletes.  In speed gate golf, Sam found a method, not only to essentially eliminate injuries from his speed training program, but also get athletes faster than they have ever been in the process.



I’m very interested in the ideas of getting faster and jumping higher without “trying as hard” and I think nothing speaks to that more firmly than studies like Rewzon’s famous (at least in terms of how often I use it) long jump study where jumpers who jumped to “targets” in the landing pit that were not necessarily their maximal distance, would jump further in the end than jumpers who jumped as far as they could every leap.



Sam has taken this idea into speed training in a creative way that helped field sport athletes (rugby) get some tremendous results, and this method is a motor learning gem that can speak volumes to physical preparation, track and sport coaches alike.



Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.



View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-141-sam-portland

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