Thread by @StuartMcMillan1

A RANT>> Firstly: there are probably a few people who know what the Chelsea players do in the WR, if anything. Most of us are not of those few - including me. There is one person who understood fully what was meant by Sarri’s comments to the media. His name is Maurizio Sarri

2. Let’s start with a thought experiment: you are hired as the new Head of Sport Science / Fitness / S&C, etc. (choose your title) at Chelsea FC, and have carte blanche to organize training in any way you like - starting this Monday.

3. Let’s say you walk into Chelsea training on Monday morning, and find out the players are not lifting weights. Let’s say they are in the exact same situation they are currently in (undefeated in the League & playing significantly better than almost all ‘experts’ expected).

4. What do you do?

5. Seeing the responses from the Daily Mail article with Sarri’s comments, it looks like almost ALL of you would get the players lifting weights. Immediately! How dare these coaches-players even think about training for football without lifting weights!!

6. That is what you may THINK. But how many of you would have the courage of your convictions? How many would ACTUALLY change a winning formula on the *guess* (yes - GUESS) that it will improve the performance of the team?

7. Would you be willing to risk your job on this guess? Would you be willing to risk the success of the team on this guess?

8. Let’s play out our thought experiment a little further: let’s say you add in 2 sessions of 45 minutes in the weight room each week. (I would argue that most ’S&C Coaches’ will deem this minimally acceptable, if not maximally optimal)

9. What are you taking away from their already successful formula to enable this?
- Specific football work?
- Meal time?
- Warm-ups?
- Socializing?
- Family-time?
- Sleep?
- Sport-medicine support?
- Hanging out with the fellas?

10. Time is finite. Meaning - we cannot find more of it. We have what we have. That is it. You want to add something in, what are you going to replace?

And how do you know that what you replace was-is not a significant part of the winning formula?

11. Here is the reality: weights for football players are at best 4 generations away from the actual playing of football. Tell me what evidence you have that a weight room program - employed within Sarri’s system at Chelsea - will decrease injury risk.

12. I won’t wait. You have none.

13. In YOUR system; in a team where YOU make the decisions; with players YOU are familiar with; within a robust methodology that YOU have spent years developing - then perhaps lifting weights during the season is totally appropriate.

14. That does not mean it is appropriate within someone else’s

15. An analogy in T&F: Usain Bolt’s weight program and his lifting technique was, in most ‘expert’s’ viewpoints, pretty poor. I have heard many state: IF ONLY his weight program was better! If ONLY his power clean technique was better!

He could have run 9.4!!

16. If you do not see the absurdity of this comment, you are either ignorant, arrogant, or both.

17. You’re lost in the weeds. Stand up. Look around. Beware your biases. And do some work to better understand what it is that truly governs human performance.