Identifying Sport Specific Ground Reaction Force Trends and Practical Training Implications
There is an overwhelming amount of athlete-centric information available for sport practitioners in this era of tech and big data, but protocols in athletic rehabilitation & performance remain arbitrary. It is a common assumption that the rate at which adaptations amongst individuals is the same; yielding protocols that are entirely time-based rather than meritcentric. Progressing athletes through training programs that lack individualization can potentially expose athletes to stimuli they are not prepared for or unnecessarily lengthen their recovery and/or realization period. Both from a diagnostic and prescriptive standpoint, practitioners must put in place protocols guided by standardized assessments and subsequent achievements in strength thresholds. In order to truly hold ourselves accountable as practitioners, we must frequently assess and analyze our success in improving our pre-defined key performance indicators.
Phil spent 8 years as a strength & conditioning coach at University of California Berkeley and University of California Los Angeles, including 3 National Championships, as well as a performance coach for the Canterbury Crusaders and the New South Wales Waratahs (professional rugby teams in New Zealand and Australia). Following his coaching career, he graduated medical school as a physician from University of Southern California, focused on studying biomechanics at their School of Physical Therapy's Biokinesiology Lab. Dr. Wagner founded Sparta Performance Science in the Silicon Valley as a facility to directly measure and enhance performance alongside athlete resilience to injury. This business evolved to include a larger technology business, Sparta Software Corporation (est. 2012), which provides an athlete data management platform to establish evidence based practices within sports organizations.
