Science for Sport Podcast

This week on the Science for Sport podcast, Richard Graves welcomes Matt Parr back to the show for a deeper look at the work that really drives performance in elite sport.

Matt is the Head of Athletic Performance at Leicester Tigers, a former professional rugby player, and the founder of High Performance Puzzle. Having worked across both rugby union and rugby league, including Leicester Tigers and Catalan Dragons, Matt brings a rare combination of playing experience, coaching insight, leadership responsibility, and high-performance strategy.

In this episode, Richard and Matt explore the “invisible work” that sits behind successful performance environments. Not the gym programme. Not the GPS report. Not the testing data. But the conversations, decisions, relationships, standards, and judgement calls that determine whether the physical work actually lands.

They discuss why data needs context, how performance teams can align with coaches under pressure, what good decision-making looks like when information is incomplete, and why trust remains one of the most important currencies in elite sport.

For sports science, S&C, medical, coaching, and performance staff working in elite environments, this episode is a valuable reminder that high performance is not built by data alone. It is built through people, relationships, standards, and the ability to make good decisions when the pressure is on.

In this episode you will learn

Why the work that drives performance often sits outside the formal programme, session plan, or data report

How conversations between coaches, medical staff, S&C, sports science, and players provide vital context

What good alignment looks like in a high-performance environment

How to manage differing opinions between technical and performance departments

Why frameworks are essential when emotions and pressure start to influence decision-making

How to make better decisions when you do not have the complete picture

Why trust between the head coach, medical team, and performance staff is critical

How to use data without becoming over-reliant on it

Why standards often slip in small ways before they show up in performance outcomes

How relationships can make or break the effectiveness of even the best performance systems

Why gut feel still matters, provided it is shaped by experience and reflection

How elite practitioners can reflect more effectively on their own decisions and behaviours

Why discipline is a habit, not just a personal trait

What Matt has learned from working across rugby union and rugby league

Why the best players want honest feedback when standards start to slip

About Matt Parr

Matt Parr is Head of Athletic Performance at Leicester Tigers and founder of High Performance Puzzle.

Before moving into strength and conditioning, Matt spent around 14 to 15 years as a professional rugby player, representing clubs including Sale Sharks, Saracens, London Irish, and Leicester Tigers. His transition into performance coaching began at Leicester Tigers, where he initially combined a player-coach role with S&C responsibilities before moving fully into the performance department.

Matt has since built extensive experience across both rugby union and rugby league. After progressing through the performance setup at Leicester Tigers, he joined Catalan Dragons as Head of Performance, before returning to Leicester as Head of Athletic Performance.

Alongside his role in professional rugby, Matt has launched High Performance Puzzle, a consultancy focused on high-performance strategy, systems, leadership, and integration.

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In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves welcomes Dr Dave Hancock back to the show.

Dave has spent more than three decades working in elite sport, including roles with Chelsea, Leeds United, the England national team and the New York Knicks. He is now CEO of Apollo, where his work focuses on helping performance teams use data, technology and AI to better understand player availability, injury risk and performance.

Dave begins by sharing the latest developments in his Blind Screen approach, which looks beyond traditional testing by examining movement quality, control and rotational demands. He explains how Apollo is combining screening information with AI-generated insights, practitioner feedback and individualised exercise recommendations.

The conversation then turns to the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Drawing on his experience of working with England at the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012, Dave discusses the challenges facing performance and medical teams across a long international tournament: heat, travel, accumulated club workload, recovery, sleep, mental freshness and the need to bring a squad together around one common goal.

This is a practical discussion about the margins that matter at the highest level of sport, from interpreting data more effectively to preparing players and staff for the demands of tournament football.

In this episode you will learn

How Dave’s Blind Screen approach is developing and being used with elite athletes and teams.

Why rotational movement may be an important missing consideration in traditional screening methods.

How AI can help practitioners combine objective data with coaching and clinical insight.

The key physical demands facing players heading into the 2026 World Cup.

Why player preparation must become increasingly individualised after a demanding club season.

The importance of sleep, recovery monitoring, travel planning and heat acclimatisation during a major tournament.

Why mental freshness, squad togetherness and staff culture can influence performance at international level.

What Dave learned from working with England at the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012.

About Dr Dave Hancock

Dr Dave Hancock is the CEO of Apollo and an experienced performance director, chartered physiotherapist and strength and conditioning coach.

Across a career spanning more than three decades in elite sport, Dave has worked as Head Physiotherapist at Leeds United and Chelsea, served on the medical staff of the England national team at the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012, and spent seven years as Performance Director of the New York Knicks in the NBA.

Through Apollo, Dave now works with sports teams around the world, using athlete management technology, data and AI to support player availability, injury risk management and performance decision-making.

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The 2026 Men’s World Cup will place unprecedented demands on international teams: 48 nations, 104 matches and a tournament staged across Canada, Mexico and the United States, with teams required to manage heat, humidity, altitude, travel and limited recovery time.

In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Dr Ben Rosenblatt, Founder of 292 Performance and former Lead Men’s Physical Performance Coach at The Football Association.

Ben draws on his experience preparing the England men’s football team for two World Cups and a European Championship, alongside his work with Olympic athletes, GB Hockey and elite performers across a range of sports.

The conversation explores what it really takes to prepare athletes for tournament football at the highest level. Ben discusses why physical preparation cannot begin when players arrive in camp, how small doses of training can create meaningful change during a tournament, and why “available” is very different from “ready to compete” when returning players from injury.

He also explains the physical and psychological challenges of competing in extreme environments, from heat and altitude to fatigue and pressure, and shares how the best performance teams use data, observation, communication and athlete understanding together to make better decisions.

For practitioners working in elite sport, this episode offers a detailed insight into preparing players not simply to take part in major tournaments, but to perform when the demands are at their highest.

In this episode you will learn

Why effective tournament preparation starts months before the first game.

How England used micro-dosed strength training during the 2018 World Cup to improve players’ power and hamstring strength.

Why athletes must continually adapt and “reinvent” themselves to sustain performance at the highest level.

How Ben used daily monitoring with GB Hockey to prepare players for the demands of eight matches in 13 days at the Rio Olympics.

Why data should be considered alongside observation, athlete feedback, staff conversations and practitioner judgement.

The difference between returning a player to availability and preparing them to compete in the decisive stages of a major tournament.

How performance teams can prepare players for heat, humidity, altitude and travel during the 2026 World Cup.

Why recovery, nutrition, strength training and sprint exposure must be individualised rather than delivered as a single team-wide solution.

How clarity, trust and pressure training help athletes execute when the stakes are highest.

What the best high-performance environments look and feel like behind the scenes.

About Dr Ben Rosenblatt

Dr Ben Rosenblatt is the Founder and Director of 292 Performance, a multidisciplinary performance consultancy supporting elite athletes and organisations.

He previously served as Lead Men’s Physical Performance Coach at The Football Association, where he supported the England men’s senior team through two World Cups and a European Championship. His career has also included work with the British Olympic Association, GB Hockey, elite football and Olympic athletes across multiple Games.

Ben holds a PhD in biomechanics and motor learning, and his work focuses on helping athletes and teams prepare for the most demanding moments in high-performance sport.

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​ Optimise Your Athletes' Recovery

​ Position Yourself As An Expert To Your Athletes And Naturally Improve Buy-In

​ Reduce Your Athletes' Injury Ratese

​ Save 100's Of Dollars A Year That Would Otherwise Be Spent On Books, Courses And More

​ Improve Your Athletes' Performance

​ Advance Forward In Your Career, Allowing You To Earn More Money And Work With Elite-Level Athletes

​ Save Yourself The Stress & Worry Of Constantly Trying To Stay Up-To-Date With Sports Science Research

This week on the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Heather Farmer, Assistant Athletics Director, Sports Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Heather has been part of the UNLV athletics staff since 2016, first joining as Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning before moving into sport science and later being promoted to Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Science in 2024.

In this episode, Heather shares how UNLV has built a sport science model from the ground up, why data should inform rather than dictate decisions, and how practitioners can create real buy-in across coaches, athletes, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, nutrition and psychology.

The conversation explores the realities of working in collegiate sport, from the impact of the transfer portal to the challenge of supporting athletes when timeframes are shorter and rosters are constantly changing. Heather also discusses the importance of female athlete data, the risks of over-relying on wearable technology, and why return-to-play decisions must go beyond timelines and basic fitness markers.

Throughout the episode, Heather brings the conversation back to one core principle: sport science is still about people. Data matters, technology matters, and AI may help practitioners work more efficiently, but the human side of performance remains central to everything.

In this episode you will learn

How Heather transitioned from collegiate soccer player to strength and conditioning coach, and then into sport science

Why UNLV built its sport science model around being “human first”

How to use data as an input rather than treating it as the final answer

Why coach buy-in is easier when practitioners build trust and show value over time

The challenges of applying male-dominated performance data to female athletes

How the transfer portal has changed long-term athlete development in collegiate sport

Why wearable technology can support performance but also create “analysis paralysis”

How UNLV approaches return to play using performance outputs, not just timelines

Why AI can support information gathering and efficiency, but cannot replace human judgement

The importance of speaking the language of other disciplines in a high-performance team

About Heather Farmer

Heather Farmer is the Assistant Athletics Director, Sports Science at UNLV. She has been with UNLV since 2016, initially working in strength and conditioning before moving into sport science leadership. Her work focuses on integrating data-informed approaches across the high-performance team while keeping the individual athlete at the centre of the process.

Before her career in performance, Heather played soccer at the University of North Alabama, where time spent rehabbing from injury and working in the weight room helped shape her interest in high-performance sport. She later worked across multiple sports as a graduate assistant at Lindenwood University before joining UNLV.

At UNLV, Heather has helped grow sport science into a foundational part of the athletics department, working closely with coaches, athletes and interdisciplinary support staff to create a model that fits the needs of the university, rather than copying what works elsewhere.

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In this episode of the Science for Sport Podcast, Richard Graves is joined by Olympic silver medallist and high performance coach Eric Franke.

Eric competed for Germany in bobsleigh, winning Olympic silver in Pyeongchang 2018 alongside multiple World Championship medals across two-man and four-man competition. Since retiring from elite competition, he has moved into high performance coaching, working with athletes in speed development, sprint mechanics and sliding sports.

This conversation explores what it really takes to perform under Olympic pressure, the physical demands of bobsleigh, and why speed still doesn’t always get the attention it deserves in team sport environments.

Eric breaks down the qualities needed to accelerate a heavy sled on ice, the difference between being fast and being effective in a sport-specific context, and why developing speed requires more than simply adding sprint drills into a programme.

He also reflects openly on his own career, including the mistakes he made as an athlete, the value of testing and tracking progress honestly, and how his coaching philosophy has developed around communication, individualisation and helping athletes become more independent decision-makers.

For sports science professionals, coaches and practitioners working in elite sport, this episode offers a detailed look at speed development, athlete management, pressure, and the transition from elite performer to high performance coach.

In this episode you will learn

What it feels like to compete at the Olympic Games and handle pressure when medals are expected

The role of the brakeman in bobsleigh and why the start phase is so technically and physically demanding

Why sprint speed does not always transfer directly into bobsleigh performance

The key physical qualities behind acceleration, rate of force development and efficient movement

Why speed training needs to be prioritised properly within the weekly training structure

How plyometrics, jumping and coordination can support speed development

Why Eric believes athletes can sometimes spend too much time in the gym

The importance of testing, measuring and honestly tracking progress

How Eric’s experience as a self-coached athlete now shapes the way he coaches others

Why experienced athletes often need guidance, guardrails and conversation rather than simply being told what to do

How coaches can adapt communication to the individual athlete in front of them

Why Eric’s ultimate coaching goal is to create “sovereign athletes” who can make better decisions when the coach is not there

About Eric Franke

Eric Franke is a former German bobsleigh athlete and Olympic silver medallist. He competed at the highest level in both two-man and four-man bobsleigh, winning silver at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and multiple medals at World Championship level.

Since retiring from competition, Eric has moved into high performance coaching, with a particular focus on speed development, sprint performance and athlete decision-making. He works with athletes across different performance environments, including bobsleigh and skeleton, helping them improve physical qualities while developing a deeper understanding of their own training process.

His coaching approach is shaped by his own experience as an elite athlete, combining technical speed development with individualised communication, clear training frameworks and an emphasis on helping athletes become more self-sufficient.

FREE 7d SCIENCE FOR SPORT ACADEMY TRIAL

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​ Learn Quicker & More Effectively

​ Optimise Your Athletes' Recovery

​ Position Yourself As An Expert To Your Athletes And Naturally Improve Buy-In

​ Reduce Your Athletes' Injury Ratese

​ Save 100's Of Dollars A Year That Would Otherwise Be Spent On Books, Courses And More

​ Improve Your Athletes' Performance

​ Advance Forward In Your Career, Allowing You To Earn More Money And Work With Elite-Level Athletes

​ Save Yourself The Stress & Worry Of Constantly Trying To Stay Up-To-Date With Sports Science Research