Science For Sport (00:01.154)
Well, Matt, welcome back to the Science for Sport podcast. It's great to have you back on. know when we last spoke roughly 12 months ago, it was a conversation which resonated with many of our guests, proved to be very popular. And as a result, it's something I thought I'd revisit when I saw a post that you put on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago. We'll get into that shortly, but you've got a track record working in both codes of rugby, league and union. You've had a great degree of success along the way.

as well for any of our listeners or viewers via the YouTube channel that aren't familiar with your history. Bring us up to speed with your career to date.

Matt (00:39.271)
Thanks for having me back on Richard, much appreciated. So I started out as a rugby player, professional rugby player for about 14-15 years in both the championship and

As I had an interest in training all the way through my career, towards the end of my career and I started studying properly for a job in S &C. I studied at St. Mary's Uni on their distance course, which a friend put me on to, which was great. And then as my career finished, I was fortunate enough to get a dual player coach role at Leicester Tigers. So I was player S &C coach.

for the 2015 World Cup, so I was kind of World Cup cover for that period, which was great. Richard Cockrell and Alex Martin gave me a leg up there, that was great. And then when the World Cup finished, then I just transitioned into being an S &C coach from there. It was a challenge at the beginning, having to do the programs and do the conditioning all at the same time and try and pretend it wasn't hard. I don't think I did that very well.

Science For Sport (01:48.494)
You

Matt (01:49.605)
It was a great pathway for me to get into S &C professionally and a great way for me to build rapport with players which ultimately helped me become a better coach.

Science For Sport (02:02.338)
You say it helped you become a better coach. I imagine that the whole sphere in which you operate has changed out of all recognition over the last 10, 11 years or so. I mentioned the success you've had both in Rugby Union with the Tigers, also in league with the Catalan Dragons. But since we last spoke as well, I know you've set up your own company, High Performance Puzzle. How have you embraced that change and to what extent has it...

changed the way you approach the role over time.

Matt (02:35.121)
think it's a good question. Over time, think people have changed. The world's changed a lot and people have changed. I think it makes it even more important now to have good relationships with players and the staff that you work with because hierarchy and just telling somebody to do something doesn't work anymore.

Players don't listen or buy in if they're just told to do something, if they don't understand why they need to do it. And if it's not going to benefit them. I don't think everybody's quite as team focused as they were. I'm not saying everybody's selfish, but I think people are more aware of how things benefit them, maybe over a team. And I think people are people, so that's the same as the staff that you work with. Whereas you would work with a group of staff for a long period of time, those staff are now...

rightly so, looking to move on and develop and push forward in their own careers. to keep people motivated and with you, you need to build relationships with them outside the door.

Science For Sport (03:43.907)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a perfect segue into why I invited you back onto the podcast, as I mentioned right at the top of this conversation. I saw a post that you put on LinkedIn a few weeks back and it immediately grabbed my attention. I'm just going to read a little bit of it so our listeners know the context in which we're operating here today. You wrote, a lot of the work that drives performance isn't written in any program.

It doesn't show up in GPS reports, it's not captured in testing data and it definitely isn't in the session plan. It looks more like aligning coaches when opinions differ, managing expectations above and below, reinforcing standards when it's uncomfortable, making decisions with incomplete information, holding the line when pressure builds. None of it sits neatly under SNC or sports science, but without it, the physical work

rarely lands the way it should. Give us context around what you were thinking and why you put that in the public debate.

Matt (04:47.662)
Yeah, I think you spend a lot of time reflecting in my role and sometimes that's one thing you can't turn off so it's nice to be able to write it down. I wasn't saying, I think one thing to clear up is I'm not saying that those things aren't important. I think they're vastly important and definitely inform what we do. But I think without all the conversations...

And there's like the small conversations, the small decisions that lead to big decisions and the way that we carry ourselves in an environment. Those reports are nowhere near as important or as influential. Like for example, if we, if we look at a GPS report, it tells us volumetrics and intensity metrics, right? And where a loading period is for a player and whether they're high or whether they're low. But

All that needs context and the conversations give you context. The conversations with, I don't know, a rehabber or a physio give you context around why we decided to go that way with their rehab or maybe their loading isn't where it needs to be perfectly. But if we need to get them back in a week, two weeks, we can manage the way that they're, the way they're managed within training. So it's more for me around.

how we have those small conversations before the big decisions are made. That was the idea.

Science For Sport (06:16.077)
Yeah, and let's be honest with the technology evolving at the pace at which it does in the current era. We have more access to data and metrics than has ever been available before. And on this podcast in particular, we spend a lot of time emphasising that it's great to have all this data, this wealth of data at your fingertips, but without being able to give it context, actually, at times it means nothing. At worst, it can occasionally be detrimental to

athletes' health and performance. I noticed in the first bullet point you put on that post said aligning coaches when opinions differ. So the first question that springs to mind to me at least Matt is what does good alignment look like in a high performance environment?

Matt (07:01.306)
think we all have to be focused on the right objectives and the same objectives. So I think one thing that can slip from say performance department into a technical technical department is that objectives for that day or for that period could be slightly different but we have to work to align them so we're all focused on the right objective for that period of time and I think in the seat that

I sit and a lot of heads of performance sit, that is what we're trying to do, right? The coaches want one thing and they have a different set of pressures to what we have. And I think the key to aligning those opinions is trying to find win-wins. Like, how do you get what you want and we get what we need at the same time? Like the last thing we want to do is get to big disagreements, but if we do get to that point...

think we all have to agree to disagree and commit to those decisions. Once the decision's been made, that's for the good of the team or the good of the organisation and then we push on from there. I think...

Science For Sport (08:06.903)
That sounds extremely logical and I don't think anybody would disagree with you, but let's be honest, in high performance environments, elite sport, you've got competitive characters, you'll have egos to deal with as well. You'll have absolute cast iron beliefs that people will say, well, it's been successful before. I am not wavering from this track. So how do you handle the scenarios when inevitably in any organization,

Matt (08:11.078)
Thank

Science For Sport (08:35.533)
Coaches will have occasions where they differ in opinions.

Matt (08:39.034)
think you have to bring those opinions together and listen to them. then for me, particularly dealing with coaches,

Not to say no straight away, hear them out and then work out how it can be done. I think that's probably a key. How can it be done? Safely, so that they get what they need all the time. a coach wants more time inevitably all the time because they're like each domain, particularly now, you talked before about how rugby and sport has changed from then. There was probably three coaches back in 2015. there's six coaches, so.

Everybody needs the more coaches have the more time they need. Everybody needs time in a schedule and it's maybe giving someone one day so we can take some away another day. What day does that fit? And I think that for me, anyone who's worked with me recently will know I'm a little bit obsessed with frameworks and they've probably heard me saying that a lot. if we have a

training plan framework, have a mesocycle or micro cycle that this is how we do it and this is what we stick to. It always gives you something to refer back to when you want to have those conversations. So this is the agreed blueprint or framework that we work from. So what we want to do here, does it fit this? If no, then you've got a great way of saying, well, look, it doesn't work on this day. Can we move it here or?

I like that we want to train at this intensity or this volume, but we need to get there. Logically, we can't just do it tomorrow because we lost at the weekend, for example. I mean, unfortunately, that we don't really do that too much at the moment, lots of people will work in environments where you lose your training load spikes over the next week. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. That's, that's really the head of medical.

Science For Sport (10:17.11)
And

Science For Sport (10:28.045)
I believe that's what you get a fine for in a professional organisation, isn't it? No, not at all.

Matt (10:36.868)
So I'll come on to him in a minute.

Science For Sport (10:38.541)
He'll be listening to this podcast now when it goes out, I'm sure. Let me take you back to one of the things you said there, which touched upon the decision-making process, I think. And look, in any professional organisation, quite often you're going to be making decisions in pressurised situations, particularly in your sport, rugby union, at this time of year, it's the business end of the season. potentially...

Matt (10:41.78)
Thank

Science For Sport (11:04.351)
each decision can be critical to success or failure because we're talking fine margins. So how do you go about that process and landing on a decision when quite often I'd imagine the information you have in front of you isn't complete because there are so many variables?

Matt (11:22.778)
Yeah, very rarely you get complete information. It's good that James was called because often we're the ones who have to make those decisions. We never have the complete picture and we have to find as much information as we have from either literature and research or our experience or then our network, if we haven't seen it before.

Science For Sport (11:30.509)
You

Matt (11:50.757)
what has our network seen that might be able to help us make a decision. Like we recently had a similar situation to that where we had an injury that we hadn't seen before, really they're very uncommon. So we reached out to the people in our network and then they were able to give us information of when they'd seen it before and then that allowed us to make a decision.

which ultimately was successful in how the player returned to play. So that be an obvious example of how we do that. I think when we're making bigger decisions, you have to involve all the stakeholders. think if you want to make a tough decision regarding selection or a player being available for selection, you have to include the coach in that. You can't just decide ultimately no.

you can't have in this week. It's a, you bring the coach in on the conversation, hear their opinion, give your opinions. And then I think have a grown up can be heated, but a grown up conversation around what's the right thing. Do we need them only for this week or do we need them for the next four weeks? Do you know, like putting out the context for the coach who sees that they have to win every week, so that they can see the bigger picture. Cause as like I've referred to before.

everybody's focus becomes quite narrow and channeled, particularly at this time of season, but there is a bigger picture to see at the same time. So sometimes you have to take a step back to be able to see the detail. think...

Key to being able to have those conversations and making those decisions is having trust, building trust with your head coach because ultimately if they don't trust you they're not going trust your decisions. And then having trust with those around you and those that you manage. Me and James have a very good working relationship, that's how I had a medical. I trust his instinct. I think we're aligned on...

Matt (13:57.499)
where we're comfortable to push and where we feel we have to pull back on players. Yeah, building that relationship over time and building trust allows you to have more frank conversations, I think.

Science For Sport (14:14.475)
You said earlier that anybody that knows you knows that you love frameworks. Is it in these kind of scenarios that you have a framework, core principles it, if you will, that you rely on to ultimately lean on when you're making these decisions?

Matt (14:31.236)
Yeah, definitely. think outside of my own personal ones, lots of people have the access and knowledge to return to play frameworks and knowing what percentage of limb symmetry or where an ash test needs to be to return a player, know, things like that. So when we get caught up in the emotion of a decision or the pressure of a decision, those are things we can refer back to. Like, can this guy sprint? Can he play?

is strength within 10%, is HIP ISO at a sufficient level. These kind of frameworks that allow you to make decisions. again, like I said earlier, you can't discard all the data and the information that we have. That helps you, informs making that decision. But it's not the only thing that's the decision. This is a of status ago.

Science For Sport (15:22.849)
Yeah, and you mentioned a scenario whereby you judge whether a player can come back next week or he's able to play for four weeks. If you don't have the relationships between the coaching staff, the medical team, the performance team, I imagine that that's where the cracks start appearing because there's a degree of trust in any of these decisions. And inevitably, I imagine if a coach doesn't have 100 % trust in the staff around him, he or she

going to turn around to you and say, okay, where's the information to back this decision? And this then comes full circle and relates to what we saying earlier about how do you make the decision without the full information in front of you. So in that scenario, in your experience, what is harder? Is it setting the standards initially, the minimum or maximum within which we all work, or is it maintaining them down the line when the pressure is really on?

Matt (16:20.142)
it's a very good question that I think it takes time to those relationships and trust that you're talking about there with the coach. So on that, would say having not done this a few times and being caught out, even if you have a good relationship, good trust and relationship with your head coach, you need to go into that meeting with all your information, all your data ready. Cause if they ask for it, they're entitled to have it. And instantly you lose that respect and trust if you don't have it ready to go.

think of a few examples where I've done that myself earlier on in my career.

Science For Sport (16:53.353)
I was going to say on that note, are there settings? I don't want you to name names, obviously, or betray anybody's trust, but can you give us an example where it has frayed at the edges and perhaps something has slipped through the cracks?

Matt (17:07.846)
Yeah, no, there's lots of examples, I think.

Science For Sport (17:09.857)
You don't have to answer that.

Matt (17:17.06)
Making assumptions is probably one. Making assumptions that a coach would agree with you on something that you think is an obvious decision and then you go in and they then show me the facts for that. You believe this but you can't prove it so don't bring me your opinions if you can't bring me the facts which is a great learning for me. So I definitely make sure I take a gun to a knife fight now.

You know, that's the whole point of experience, isn't it? You've got to learn from it. It's difficult at time, but it empowers you later.

Science For Sport (17:47.117)
Very wise, very sensible.

Science For Sport (17:55.617)
Yeah, yeah.

Science For Sport (17:59.362)
Yeah, absolutely it does. And I know when I was getting ready for this conversation earlier that in this sphere that we're talking about now, the phrase invisible work in inverted commas kept creeping up. And I guess for many of our listeners, the question will be if you can't see it and it's not something that necessarily you can lay out in front of a coach, a colleague, an athlete to prove that what you're saying, what you believe is right.

How does that then translate into the performance data, the tangible effects where everybody can buy into it because the metrics then back it up? I guess what I'm trying to say is how do you convince people that faith, if you like, in the system here works?

Matt (18:42.63)
you

Matt (18:50.79)
think referring back to results and experience from before, I think if you can say in my experience, I've seen this, I can't prove it, but I've seen this and this is what happened. even if it's, say with a head coach and you don't have the information, you can go, this is how I feel, this is what I'm seeing. Can you have a look at this and tell me what you think? Because it is, you're right, from what I just said, you can't go in and dictate and say, standards are slipping.

Because that's something that you can't really see. Well, you can see, but you feel. If you feel people are becoming complacent or if you think standards are going, it's very hard to prove, but you can flag it and make somebody aware. Can you just have a look at this and see if you're seeing the same thing? And you can circle back and have that conversation again later in the day or later in the week, and then make a plan to go forward from that. I think.

We have to trust in our guts a little bit because ultimately our gut is our experience, isn't it? It's what we've seen before and there are biases involved, I understand that, but I think there's a skill in reflecting on what your gut told you and what the actual outcome was and learning which bits you can trust and which bits you can't.

Science For Sport (20:12.753)
With that in mind then, I imagine both you as the practitioner and the athletes you work with, in both areas you need to have discipline. So how do you get better at that side of things given your experience now? Is it something that can be taught or as you've touched upon already? Ultimately, does it come down to experience?

Matt (20:37.157)
Yes, it does. But you can be disciplined in the way that you learn from your experience. think reflecting on practices is great and quite a buzzword. I don't necessarily believe you have to write everything down. But there's definitely a lot of pain half an hour at end of the day or you drive home, working through the day, working, looking at what worked, what didn't. Yeah, I would say.

That's one way to do it.

Discipline's a habit. for me, it's a habit. Consistency is a key thing for me. if we are looking to create discipline throughout a squad or disciplined actions, it's about building habits, isn't it? And you have to help people build those habits at the beginning. So you remove any obstacles to those barriers, any constraints so that people can get on the path you want them to get on. And then it's your job to keep them there, really. I think that's around where standards slip.

having those conversations with people because ultimately good players want to be told if they're not doing something right. They want to be told if things are slipping because they want to get better. The best players want to get better all the time and if you're not helping them to do that then you probably need to get out of the way.

Science For Sport (21:59.594)
Absolutely. As we keep saying, we're talking about fine margins and these are the sort of things that make a difference. With that in mind then, what would be the one discipline, the one behaviour if you like, that you feel drives performance more than people necessarily realise?

Matt (22:17.463)
big question.

Matt (22:22.245)
I would say it has to be having integrity, as obviously...

personal trait but you have to have integrity so that people trust you and then you can be disciplined in what you do go for. If you say you're going to do something and you're disciplined with your actions I think that's my answer I'm not quite sure I answered the question there.

Science For Sport (22:47.341)
Well, okay, let me rephrase it then. We've talked about invisible work and basically having to back yourself, having faith in the process, if you like. And these are systems, methods that you've clearly instilled all along the way in your career and as we say with some success. So if someone was listening and applying it even to their own amateur club that they work with right now, for example.

said, right, okay, I've listened to this podcast, I've heard what Matt Pars said, I'm going to follow this now and try and instill these disciplines within the athletes that I'm working with. If you're only focused on one of the things we've spoke about today, what do you think is the thing that would immediately leap out a month down the line that's tangible that say, right, okay, I doubted it, but actually I can see the train here and I can see the results.

Matt (23:48.634)
Relationships. Relationships with people. People are probably the most important thing. If you have the right people on the bus, as they say, you're going to go in the right direction. But if you don't have a good relationship with those people, the rest of it doesn't fit. The rest of it doesn't work. You can have the best objective data in the world. You know, can have the best frameworks in the world. But if people don't want to listen to you and people don't feel like you care about them,

then they're not going to care about you and what you say. So relationships and people would...

Science For Sport (24:23.125)
Great answer and the reason I like it most Matt is because like we keep referring to you have all this date You have all these numbers all these metrics. How do you make it work best in your environment? You're setting the organization you're working with and the truth the matter is it's still the face-to-face contact It's talking it's exchanging ideas and actually then being able to apply those numbers to what's been discussed so that both you and your athlete

are able to use it to the best of their ability.

Matt (24:54.553)
Yeah, 100%. I think there's some really key daily examples of that. If we have our daily wellness monitoring, so we're trying to turn a subjective measure into something objective, so we get numbers again, and then sports scientists receives those, he'll send them out, flag those, but ultimately that leads to a conversation with a player or with another member of staff to say, have you seen him yet today? Yeah, he's fine. He just put that down because he got a knock on it yesterday.

that lowers the stress level for everybody. You don't then have to report that to the head coach and that heightens his stress levels. So it's a little conversation that helps you provide context for those numbers. It's key because in the world where we are saturated with numbers and like people will ask you that's the first question. You you get an injury or what does the GPS look like? Well, the GPS only told me what he did.

three times this week for an hour and a half. It didn't tell me what he did last night, what he did everywhere else, but a conversation will tell you that.

Science For Sport (26:00.159)
I appreciate those thoughts, sentiments, and once again, we're coming to the end of what I've found to be another absorbing discussion around this topic, Matt. So thank you for your time. For our listeners, where can they keep up with you on social media and the various posts that you put on there occasionally, every so often, that keeps me occupied?

Matt (26:19.749)
I mainly post on LinkedIn, like with a, as you mentioned earlier, a small business setup, the high performance puzzle. It's just getting started really, me building something for later in life. But you'll catch anything that I do on LinkedIn. That's probably where I'm most active.

Science For Sport (26:40.909)
It's certainly always good to plan ahead. Once again, thanks for your time, Matt, and I wish you all the best with the rest of the summer.

Matt (26:47.055)
Brilliant. Thanks, Richard.