The Multi-disciplinary Team:
Fighting for order amongst the chaos
The 2021 FMPA conference will take a critical look at the MDT; the Past, Present and Future. The last 10 years have seen a proliferation of the field of Sports Science and Medicine; for the better? As each individual discipline strives for recognition amongst a landscape of opinions, how do we create clarity amongst the inevitable chaos? How is it best achieved? The term interdisciplinary team is frequently used but how does this truly look? More importantly, how does this truly work? Calling on experts across world leading institutions, a wide-ranging assembly of MDT speakers will discuss best practice, challenges faced and what the future holds for want-to-be world leading performance and medicine departments.
Knowledge is power and strength comes from working together
Education Co-ordinator
Dr Russ Wrigley
Head of Academy Medical/Sports Science
Blackburn Rovers FC
9.25
Welcome & Opening Address
Eamonn Salmon
CEO
FMPA
9.30
Title: coming soon
**LIVE** Q & A
Professor Warren Gregson
Head of Sports Science, Aspire Academy
Professor of Exercise Physiology, Liverpool John Moores University
10.00
Learning from coaches and coach education: How can physical coaches and practitioners more effectively integrate into a contemporary football MDT?
Reflecting on his work with the education of English professional game coaches working at youth and senior level Matt will discuss how the coach education curriculum is helping coaches to better understand aspects of physical performance in relation to the development and performance of football players. He will also share insights into how other members of the MDT can benefit on the wider knowledge coaches are gaining to help them become a more effective team when working to support their football programme.
**LIVE** Q & A
10.30
Pulling (hamstrings) together!!
**LIVE** Q & A
James Allen
Physiotherapist
11.00
Coffee break, trade exhibition & networking
We kindly ask all our delegates to support our sponsors.
11.30
Performance Solutions: Solving Performance Problems Together
Improvements in performance are usually a product of innovation (i.e. knowledge) and delivery (practical execution). However, the translation of science to the elite sporting environment is not always straightforward, owing to the ever-changing dynamics of professional sport. In this presentation, I reflect on my time in both academia and high performance sport to arrive at key performance principles that support winning consistently. A winning culture is underpinned by leadership that promotes a team of teams, winning behaviour, continual improvement and a performance (athlete) first approach. Ultimately, it is the progressive and shared understanding of ourselves and the people that we work with that really underpins winning performances. Whilst the transition of paper-to-podium is a product of knowledge and delivery, it is suggested that it is the final step of delivery that is the difference between winning and losing.
**LIVE** Q & A
12.00
Multi-disciplinary team approach in a professional football club: FCBarcelona experience
How do FC Barcelona work together as a club in different departments such as medical, performance, sports analytics and methodology? How do doctors, physiotherapists, physical coaches, coaches, etc… strive to work together to make decisions on a daily basis with the same objective in mind? As always even with the best methodology and even the best philosophy, the people are the key.
In a huge club with so many people involved, and under constant pressure, this system is pushed to the limit, which can put these people at risk of physical and mental illness. If people work in isolation and not cohesively within the team support system, the relationship with others weakens and the system can fail, with potential impact on players, coaches and staff. Dr Rodas Font will describe his experience of almost 20 years in one of the worlds greatest clubs.
**LIVE** Q & A
12.30
INTEGRATED COACHING
My early attempts at teaching and coaching were particularly unsuccessful. Why? Because I taught/coached in silos, tick boxes – compartmentalised so that no performance elements were synchronised.
A meeting, which led to a life long working friendship with Pierre Villepreux, educationalist and pioneering coach, changed this.
Subsequently, over a period of 36 years, I have, through experimentation, developed an approach which attempts to integrate all performance elements when appropriate to allow the opportunity for players to operate in real game experiences.
**LIVE** Q & A
To be confirmed
13.00
Lunch break, networking and trade exhibition
We kindly ask all our delegates to support our sponsors.
13.30
The Next 10 years: A magic roundabout or the holy grail?
As football performance practitioners what have we learned over the years, how do we see the next ten years evolving?
More research? More data? More stats? More confusion? More chaos? Perhaps yes and why not?
May be the marrying up of physical performance and psychological performance leading to a complete player performance model? Or will we see that we may already have many answers within our grasp and re-focus, re-set and look perhaps closer to home in how we all work and function within a football business environment. And yes, potentially another ten years of fighting for order amongst the new chaos?
**LIVE** Q & A
14.00
Development and Performance is Everybody’s Business: A Performance Psychology Perspective
** subject to change**
Growing numbers of staff are being employed in increasingly diverse roles in an effort to support development and performance in professional football. Done effectively this may expose players to greater knowledge, expertise and experience, done ineffectively this may result in conflict, confusion and uncertainty among players, staff and the system as a whole. Drawing on systemic approaches to psychology and an applied case study relating to psychology and injury rehabilitation, the presentation will consider the processes and conditions that promote effective MDT/IDT practice.
**LIVE** Q & A
14.30
Title: coming soon
**LIVE** Q & A
15.00
Coffee break, networking and trade exhibition
We kindly ask all our delegates to support our sponsors .
15.30
The team behind the team – What makes a support team synergistic & uniform?
Team – group of individuals working together towards a common goal. A challenge to staff MDT is ensuring our support is directed correctly to a team full players with individual needs. As players become more aware of support available to them & can work with multiple staff members over the course of a day/ period of time, ensuring commonalities with language, goals, function & demand are pertinent to success. Simple? What happens if the common goals aren’t shared between the collective group of individuals? This applies for both the football team and the staff team (MDT) we’re egos and individuals craving task independence can create conflict.
This talk will explore the above and will provide a reflective case report showing the working relationship between members of a MDT at 1st Team level and Academy level in Football.
**LIVE** Q & A
16.00
The MDT: perspectives of a S&C coach leading a sports science and medical department
The inherent nature of the performance and medicine department is multifaceted with a breadth of disciplines aiding performance. Spanning from detailed physiology, to biomechanics, psychology (performance and mental health), nutrition requires a team of specialists to all cohesively feed into a dynamic environment with their own perspectives of the situation/environment. Therefore, as a lead of such MDT, what are the “right” questions in subject fields that we are not an expert in? How do we successfully position each practitioner within department, academy, first team and The Club to develop an aligned and uniform process?
**LIVE** Q & A
16.30
To be confirmed
**LIVE** Q & A
Phil Hayward
Director of Performance and Sport Science
LA Galaxy
17.00
To be confirmed
**LIVE** Q & A
17.30
Close
This programme is subject to change at the discretion of the FMPA.