Science for Sport Podcast

Latest Episodes:

342: Moving Beyond Aerobic and Anaerobic Training Labels Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

Does the way we talk about aerobic and anaerobic training help us prescribe better conditioning, or can it lead us towards the wrong sessions?

This week, Richard Graves welcomes James de Lacey back to the Science for Sport podcast to examine conditioning for high-intensity intermittent sports, including rugby, football and combat sports.

James challenges the assumption that improving recovery between hard efforts always requires more low-intensity training. He explains the distinction between delivering oxygen to the muscles and the muscles’ ability to use it, and why identifying what limits an individual athlete should guide the training you prescribe.

They discuss what repeated sprint tests, heart rate responses and muscle oxygenation measurements can reveal, including why two athletes can achieve the same performance score through very different physiological responses. James also makes his case for short sprint interval sessions and explains why conditioning needs to complement the technical and tactical work athletes already do.

For practitioners working with limited time, the conversation raises a useful question: are you targeting the adaptation the athlete needs, or simply adding more work?

In this episode you will learn

Why James questions the use of aerobic and anaerobic labels to prescribe conditioning.
How oxygen delivery and oxygen use influence performance and recovery between intense efforts.
Why peak speed, power and VO₂ max values provide only part of an athlete’s performance picture.
How heart rate recovery patterns and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can inform individual conditioning decisions.
Where James sees a role for sprint intervals, longer intervals and low-intensity training.
How to account for sport practice, training load and time constraints when planning conditioning.
Why James argues that improvements from sprint interval training can continue beyond an initial training block.

About James de Lacey
James de Lacey is a strength and conditioning coach with experience in professional and international rugby union and rugby league. He holds a master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Science and has published research in strength and conditioning. His work now includes coaching combat sports athletes and educating coaches through Sweet Science of Fighting. He is also a longstanding contributor to Science for Sport’s research reviews.

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341: Preparing Athletes for Pressure and Adversity Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Can athletes learn to grow from pressure, rather than simply recover from it?

This week, Richard Graves welcomes Dr Nick Holton to the Science for Sport podcast to explore antifragility: the idea that appropriately managed challenges could help athletes develop greater capacity to handle future demands.

Nick explains how he distinguishes antifragility from resilience, and why preparing athletes for difficult moments means looking beyond visualising the perfect performance. They discuss how coaches can introduce realistic challenges, account for individual differences, and support athletes through the experience and recovery afterwards.

For practitioners, the central question is how to create enough challenge to encourage development without overwhelming the athlete. Nick discusses the importance of understanding the specific emotions involved, why strong performances can conceal a risk of burnout, and how athlete feedback and wearable data might inform a more complete picture.

They also examine the limitations of the research. Antifragility remains an emerging field, with questions around its definition, measurement and application in sport. Nick shares what his team is investigating and what coaches can take from the concept while that evidence develops.

In this episode you will learn

How Nick distinguishes antifragility from resilience and robustness.
Why visualisation should also prepare athletes for difficult and imperfect circumstances.
Why psychological challenges need to reflect the individual athlete’s capacity and experience.
How pressure, frustration, disappointment and anger can require different responses.
Why recovery, athlete agreement and appropriate support matter when introducing challenges.
How performance, wellbeing and burnout can tell different stories about the same athlete.
Where antifragility research currently stands and what better measurement could offer practitioners.

About Dr Nick Holton
Dr Nick Holton is a performance and wellbeing coach, consultant and co-founder of The Antifragile Academy. He works with professional and collegiate athletes, alongside organisations in education, business and first-response services. His work focuses on human flourishing: supporting performance alongside wellbeing and fulfilment. A former football coach with 15 years’ coaching experience, Nick brings a background in education and psychology to his work with athletes and coaches.

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340: What Saliva Testing Can Tell Us About Athletes Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

What can a saliva sample tell a performance team that a blood test taken a few times a season might miss?

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Marlon Millard, chemist and founder of Biolyz, to discuss how frequent biomarker testing could help teams understand what is normal for each athlete, and spot changes that deserve a closer look.

Marlon explains what saliva can and cannot reveal, why a cortisol reading needs context, and how testing trends may be more useful than reacting to a single result. They also discuss the practical challenge of turning large amounts of biochemical data into information that medical and performance staff can use alongside training load, wellness and performance measures.

The conversation looks ahead to whether these data could eventually help teams anticipate illness, poor recovery or injury risk, while being clear that reliable prediction still requires more evidence.

In this episode you will learn

Why Marlon moved from chemistry and endocrinology into athlete testing
Where saliva testing can add to, or differ from, blood testing
How frequent testing helps establish an athlete’s individual baseline
Why cortisol alone cannot explain the cause of a change
How training load and other data help make sense of biomarker results
Why one unusual reading should not trigger an immediate response
What is needed before biomarker data can support reliable predictions

About Marlon Millard

Marlon Millard is a chemist and the founder and CEO of Biolyz, a company developing saliva based biomarker testing. His background includes experimental endocrinology and non-invasive testing, followed by medicinal chemistry. He now works on applying frequent, multi-biomarker testing in elite sport.

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339: Can a Playing Surface Change How an Athlete Moves? Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

How much does the surface beneath an athlete’s feet really affect performance and injury risk?

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Professor John Sorochan from the University of Tennessee and Alan Thomson, USA Sales Director at SIS Pitches, to explore the science behind the playing surfaces used at the highest levels of sport.

From natural grass and artificial turf to the growing use of hybrid pitches, John and Alan explain what actually happens when an athlete interacts with a playing surface – and why the relationship between the player, their footwear and the surface itself matters.

John takes us inside the testing process, explaining how researchers measure factors such as surface hardness, traction, stability and consistency, and how those measurements help inform decisions around player performance and safety.

The conversation also explores the rapid development of hybrid surfaces. Alan explains how introducing a small percentage of synthetic fibre into natural grass can reinforce the pitch, reduce surface damage and help maintain more consistent playing conditions across demanding schedules.

The pair also discuss one of the biggest challenges in modern sport: creating elite-level natural playing surfaces inside stadiums that are increasingly expected to host football, American football, concerts and other major events throughout the year.

Drawing on their work around the 2026 FIFA World Cup, they reveal how surfaces were developed to perform consistently across hugely different environments – from the heat and humidity of Miami to altitude in Mexico and cooler conditions in Canada.

They also look at the debate around artificial turf in the NFL, what research can tell us about hybrid alternatives, and where playing-surface technology could go next.

In this episode you will learn

Why player safety depends on the interaction between the athlete, footwear and playing surface
What researchers actually measure when testing elite sports pitches
How surface hardness, traction and stability can influence player movement
The difference between natural grass, artificial turf and hybrid playing surfaces
Why hybrid pitches are still predominantly natural grass despite their synthetic reinforcement
How hybrid systems can create greater stability and consistency as a pitch begins to wear
How playing surfaces were developed for very different climates during the 2026 FIFA World Cup
Why achieving consistent ball and player interaction across different stadiums is so important
How multi-use stadiums are changing the demands placed on grounds teams and playing surfaces
Why shallow hybrid stitching has opened up new possibilities for temporary and replaceable surfaces
What elite sport can learn from the ongoing debate around artificial turf and player safety
How research, technology and experienced pitch managers work together to produce elite surfaces

About Professor John Sorochan and Alan Thomson

Professor John Sorochan is Distinguished Professor of Turfgrass Science and Management at the University of Tennessee and one of the leading researchers in sports turf and athletic-field safety.
His career in turfgrass science stretches back more than 30 years, including working as a student on the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Today, his research examines the relationship between playing surfaces, player biomechanics, turf performance and safety.
John has worked with organisations across elite sport including the NFL, Major League Baseball and professional football, and has played a leading role in research designed to deliver safe and consistent pitches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Alan Thomson is USA Sales Director at SIS Pitches and has spent his career working with elite sports surfaces.
After beginning his career in golf-course management in Scotland, Alan moved into the construction, renovation and maintenance of football pitches before joining SIS Pitches. He now works across the United States helping venues implement hybrid playing-surface technology across sports including football, American football, baseball and lacrosse.
His recent work has included major stadium projects across North America and the installation and development of hybrid surfaces used during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

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338: How Sports Science Has Changed Coaching with Simon Grayson Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

Few people are better placed to chart the evolution of sports science in professional football than Simon Grayson.

Across a career spanning five decades, Simon has experienced the game as both a player and manager, from an era of bacon sandwiches before training and beers on the team bus, through to the GPS data, individualised programmes and specialist performance departments that are now part of everyday professional football.

This week, Richard Graves sits down with Simon to discuss how that transformation has changed the way players train, recover and prepare for matches, and how his own approach to management has evolved alongside it.

Simon explains what he wants from sports science practitioners as a manager, why information has to be relevant rather than simply available, and why data should always be understood within the context of what actually happened on the pitch.

They also explore one of the challenges facing modern performance teams: finding the right balance between objective data and a coach's experience. Simon discusses why high-speed running is one of the metrics he pays particular attention to, how physical data can influence team selection during congested schedules, and why he has never wanted his training sessions to be dictated entirely by the numbers.

Drawing on his experiences in English football and coaching overseas, Simon also explains how climate, culture and the physical capabilities of players can force coaches to adapt their methods.

And despite everything that has changed, he believes one part of coaching remains as important as ever: getting the best out of people.

In this episode you will learn

How sports science in professional football has changed since Simon began playing in the 1980s
What a manager actually wants from sports science and performance staff
Why more data doesn't necessarily mean better information
Why Simon pays particular attention to high-speed running
How physical data can influence selection during congested fixture schedules
Why training load data needs to be interpreted within the context of the game
How managers balance sports science recommendations with coaching experience
What modern recovery looks like compared with previous generations
How Simon adapted his training methods when coaching in different climates and cultures
Why man-management and relationships remain fundamental regardless of advances in technology

About Simon Grayson

Simon Grayson has spent more than four decades in professional football as a player, coach and manager.

After beginning his career at Leeds United, he went on to play for clubs including Leicester City, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers and Blackpool. His playing career included promotion to the Premier League with Leicester and victory in the 1997 League Cup.

As a manager, Simon has led clubs including Blackpool, Leeds United, Huddersfield Town, Preston North End, Sunderland and Bradford City, with promotion-winning campaigns at several clubs. His career has also taken him overseas, giving him experience of working with players and performance teams in different footballing cultures and environments.

More recently, Simon has worked in international football and advisory roles, while also launching the Simon Grayson Football Academy in Leeds.

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337: Structure, Pacing and Recovery in Fight Preparation Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

Are elite athletes training harder than the demands of their sport require?

This week, Richard Graves is joined by performance coach Colin Byrne, who spent seven years working with Conor McGregor as part of his training and corner team.

Colin believes many athletes, particularly in combat sports, still confuse doing more work with preparing effectively. He explains why conditioning should reflect the actual structure of competition, how fatigue affects technical execution and why the ability to recover between intense efforts can decide contests.

The conversation explores Colin’s work with McGregor following his first defeat to Nate Diaz. He describes how introducing greater structure, separating skill development from conditioning and helping McGregor understand his own intensity transformed the preparation for their rematch just 14 weeks later.

Colin also introduces his “one-round principle”, challenges the value of routinely exceeding competition distances in training and explains what combat sports can learn from cycling’s measurement-led approach to performance.

In this episode you will learn

Why many combat athletes train too much without training specifically enough
How fatigue affects decision-making and technical execution
What Colin changed after Conor McGregor’s first fight with Nate Diaz
Why skill training and conditioning may need to be separated
How heart rate and power data can help athletes understand pacing
Why recovery between high-intensity efforts matters so much
How the “one-round principle” changes the structure of fight preparation
Why training beyond the demands of competition is not always productive
What coaches can learn from cycling’s approach to measurement
How amateur athletes can make better use of limited training time

About Colin Byrne

Colin Byrne is a performance coach, martial artist and founder of the Shinobi Academy in Portugal. A former professional cyclist and European silver medallist in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, he holds black belts in both Brazilian jiu-jitsu and ninjutsu.

Colin spent seven years travelling and working with Conor McGregor, helping to structure his conditioning following the first Nate Diaz fight and supporting him as a trainer and cornerman. His approach combines practical coaching experience, measurable performance data and a detailed understanding of the demands placed on combat athletes.

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336: How the NFL’s Best Practitioners Use Performance Data Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

Elite teams have access to more performance data than ever. The real competitive advantage, however, comes from knowing which questions to ask, how to interpret the answers and when to act.

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Jamie Hepner, Director of Applied Sport Science – Football Performance at Catapult.

Drawing on almost 12 years of working with leading NFL and college football programmes, Jamie explains how applied sports science has progressed from simply monitoring athletes to actively shaping training and practice.

The conversation explores how performance teams can combine wearable data, video and practitioner judgement to manage player availability without leaving athletes underprepared. Jamie discusses why training load cannot be viewed in isolation, how deviations at individual and positional-group level require different responses, and why feeling tired after a demanding training block is not necessarily a negative outcome.

Jamie also explains how technology such as Vector 8 is connecting physical performance data with the tactical context of practice. This allows practitioners to examine the demands of particular plays, automate player participation and prescribe the type and number of repetitions an athlete may need during the week.

This is a practical discussion about moving beyond interesting information and using data to make decisions that improve preparation, availability and performance.

In this episode you will learn

What applied sports science looks like within NFL and college football
Why the quality of the question determines the value of the data
How player tracking and video can provide greater context around physical demands
Why minimising training load does not necessarily reduce injury risk
How performance teams balance player availability with adequate preparation
How wearable data can help prescribe practice rather than simply review it
Why individual and positional-group deviations require different responses
How subjective athlete feedback and objective performance data work together
Why fatigue and soreness can sometimes be an intended training response
How practitioners can turn performance information into decisions coaches can use
Why the next stage of athlete monitoring is likely to focus on context rather than data volume

About Jamie Hepner

Jamie is Director of Applied Sport Science – Football Performance at Catapult

He works with leading American football programmes to help practitioners and coaches apply athlete-monitoring data to training, preparation and player-availability decisions. During almost 12 years at Catapult, Jamie has helped the company respond to the evolving performance needs of NFL and college football teams.

Originally from Australia, Jamie relocated to the United States when he joined Catapult during the company’s early expansion into American sport. His previous experience includes athlete management with AFL Victoria and strength and conditioning coaching.

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335: The Three Outcomes That Define High Performance Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

What does it take to build a genuinely integrated high-performance programme?

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Dr Trevor Short, Senior Associate Athletics Director for Health, Wellness and Performance at Utah State University.

Trevor explains how Utah State is bringing sports science, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, nutrition and mental wellness together around three shared objectives: athlete availability, performance development and readiness to compete.

The conversation explores why alignment must come before data, how monitoring should respond to the questions coaches are actually asking, and why collecting more information does not automatically lead to better decisions. Trevor also discusses the challenge of balancing performance development with athlete availability, adapting thresholds to the demands of the season and communicating the same evidence differently to coaches and senior leaders.

This is a practical discussion about designing high-performance systems in which every intervention has a purpose, departments work beyond their traditional silos and the athlete remains at the centre of decision-making.

In this episode you will learn

Why athlete availability, performance and readiness can be competing objectives
How Utah State is integrating its performance, medical, nutrition and mental wellness teams
Why alignment with coaches should come before collecting data
How to build monitoring systems around meaningful performance questions
Why readiness flags must be interpreted within the context of the season
How multidisciplinary teams can make better decisions for individual athletes
Why the same information should be communicated differently to coaches and administrators
How standard operating procedures can make performance systems more consistent and measurable
Why leadership, culture and trust matter as much as technology
How integrated athlete support can increase a team’s chances of winning

About Trevor Short

Dr Trevor Short is Senior Associate Athletics Director for Health, Wellness and Performance at Utah State University, where he oversees sports medicine, strength and conditioning, sports nutrition, mental wellness and sports performance.

Before joining Utah State, Trevor worked as a performance and sports scientist at the University of Hawai‘i, supporting sports science provision across its intercollegiate programmes. His career has also included strength and conditioning, applied research, university teaching, private-sector performance coaching and operational leadership.

Trevor holds a PhD in Kinesiology and is a Certified Performance and Sport Scientist and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA. His work focuses on integrated high-performance systems, athlete monitoring and the use of evidence to improve athlete availability, readiness and performance.

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334: How Elite Athletes Respond Under Pressure Aug 24, 2026

Show notes

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Dr Alicia Naser, behavioural scientist and founder of The Naser Institute for Behavioral Sports Psychology.

Dr Naser works with professional athletes and organisations across hockey, tennis, baseball, basketball and golf, helping them understand the relationship between behaviour, physiology and performance under pressure. In this episode, she explains why mental performance should not sit separately from physical preparation, and how fatigue, heart rate, self-talk and emotion can all influence an athlete’s ability to execute when it matters.

The conversation explores the practical value of becoming more aware of internal responses during competition. From using frustration constructively rather than trying to suppress it, to striking the right balance with wearable data, Dr Naser offers a behavioural-science lens on high-performance sport that will be useful for practitioners, coaches and athletes alike.

In this episode you will learn

Why mental health and mental performance are related, but not the same thing
How physical fatigue can affect clarity, decision-making and execution
The relationship between heart rate, anxiety and an athlete’s self-talk
Why emotional awareness can itself be a useful performance intervention
How frustration can be used to create focus and competitive intent
Where breathing strategies fit within performance under pressure
How to use wearable data without becoming overly dependent on it
Why mental and physical preparation should be integrated across a performance programme
How practitioners can use pre- and post-intervention data to build organisational buy-in
A simple journalling exercise athletes and coaches can use to identify performance barriers

About Dr Alicia Naser

Dr Alicia Naser, PhD, BCBA-D, is a behavioural scientist, Board Certified Behavior Analyst and founder of The Naser Institute for Behavioral Sports Psychology. Her work combines behavioural science, physiology and mental performance to support professional athletes, coaches and organisations. Dr Naser has more than 12 years of advanced study, research and applied work in behavioural psychology, and works across a range of elite sports including the NHL, ATP Tour, MLB, NBA, PGA and Premier League.

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333: Why Athletes Keep Breaking Down Aug 17, 2026

Show notes

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Dave Emsley, physiotherapist and movement specialist at The Body Mechanics, for a practical conversation on why successful rehabilitation needs to look beyond the site of pain.

Dave explains how the body adapts around injury, why a scan or strength test is only one part of the picture, and what practitioners can learn by observing how an athlete actually moves. From hamstring tears and persistent knee pain to golf swings, fast bowling and return-to-play decisions, this episode explores the relationship between biomechanics, motor patterns and long-term performance.

The discussion also unpacks “adaptive potential”: the body’s remarkable ability to find a way to keep performing when something is not working as it should. But that capacity is not unlimited. For practitioners, the challenge is recognising when an athlete’s compensations are taking them closer to the gutter and helping them restore better options before another area of the system breaks down.

In this episode you will learn

Why pain should be treated as information, rather than simply the problem to remove
How movement compensations can shift load elsewhere in the kinetic chain
Where scans, strength testing and force-plate data fit within a complete assessment
Why data should help confirm a clinical decision, rather than make it in isolation
The difference between quantitative testing and the qualitative assessment of movement
What “adaptive potential” means for injury risk, performance and longevity
Why athletes with the same diagnosis may need very different rehabilitation plans
When technical changes are worth making—and when practitioners should protect an athlete’s existing strengths
Why return-to-play should account for the athlete’s actual performance demands, not just symptom resolution
How practitioners can use movement quality to guide more individualised rehabilitation

About Dave Emsley

Dave Emsley is a physiotherapist and movement specialist at The Body Mechanics. With a background in sports science and physiotherapy, he works with athletes across a range of sports, including golf and football, and consults with Premier League footballers. His work focuses on biomechanical assessment, movement patterns, rehabilitation and helping people return to performance with a better understanding of how their body moves.

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