I am really excited to announce a new partnership with Centre Pass Apparel who will be making all Petrie Strength and Conditioning training gear.

I chose CP because of the exceptional value and quality of the organic materials (I’ve already sampled some of the goods and they’re great!).

Partnering with CP has also allowed me to extend the range of products offered, including leggings and sports bras, which have been requested since forever.

Check out the catalogue below to see the full range. Orders can be made by messaging me directly.

Enjoy!

#centrepassapparel

Wow! What a 10-day stretch that was!!

It all kicked off with a 6-hour drive to Warwick to meet up with TTNC Warriors (u16s) for the Netball Performance Teams Invitational, which took the place of nationals this year. It was a great weekend on several fronts; we had a lot of fun on and off the court, put in some great performances and the girls were very professional in how they prepared and recovered for each game (4 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday). The hotel should get a special mention here for the endless supply of ice for ice baths and free use of a conference room for evening stretches. The weekend culminated in the girls finishing in the middle 3^rd, having faced, and pushed hard 2 of the top 4 teams in qualification.

Next stop was just up the road to Stratford Upon Avon for my first training camp with Shakespeare Swords. Though the club is an old one having a strength and conditioning programme as part of the club’s training is new. My time was spent between performing some base line testing, to evaluate how well the fencers move and their athletic abilities, running some lifting technique workshops and getting to know everyone and having some fun with some agility games.

Tuesday evening saw me heading down to London for 2 days with the Leon Paul Project High Performance Programme. This is an entirely new project combining world class fencing coaching and resources with fully tailored strength and conditioning support and dedicated sports therapy. As with Shakespeare Swords, I will be remotely managing the strength and conditioning for this programme, supporting the best fencers in the country through regular visits and online. It was incredible to see the energy and enthusiasm from everyone involved and particularly good to have so many high-level fencers in one place and fencing encyclopedia, Jon Salfield.

My time at the Leon Paul training camp coincided with Gemma’s competition days at the Paralympics. Whilst this didn’t go as well as hoped we’ve all taken a lot away from Tokyo to take forward to Paris 2024.

Friday I was back on the road to meet up with TTNC Trojans (u14s) for their turn at “Nationals”. The weekend started well, with the girls cooking for us in a Come Dine With Me competition. The Mid-court team won the evening with their hunter’s chicken. Over the weekend Trojans played some fantastic netball, running the top ranked teams hard and deservedly earned their way into the playoffs for 1-6. Sunday saw them draw Oldham (18 times winners) for the second time that weekend and gave them their hardest match of the weekend. The team lost by 5 points, but the effects were telling on the opposition who were noticeably fatigued in their remaining games, including the final. Trojans finished the weekend competing in the 3^rd/4^th place playoff, losing by 2 points, after a remarkable turnaround from 11 points down. This represents the highest placing in the club’s 9-year history and testament to the hard work of the coaches, especially Chantelle and the players.

Whilst all that was happening, online client Steffi was competing in the u15 Triathlon (for modern pentathlon) World Championships in Germany. The competition comprised of the swim, run and shoot elements of the modern pentathlon. At 13 Steffi was the youngest competitor in the field and finished an incredible 17^th place. She has a very promising future ahead of her.

It didn’t end there because I had to drive from Coventry where we were staying straight to the gym for Monday’s clients. I eventually got home at 19:30, slightly tired, with lots of action points and ideas for the future but mostly enthusiasm and passion for the work I do and the people I work with.

To finish, a quick mention for Trish and the boys who are incredibly understanding of the demands of my job and the need to go MIA at times. I couldn’t do it without them.

Recent testimonial from Hariette and her mum.

Hariette came to me post ACL reconstruction to prep her for the rugby season with Exeter Uni and hopefully Chiefs. With a combination of gym and field based activities it was amazing to see how quickly she progressed and settled quickly into a full time preseason training programme.

I’m looking forward to catching Hariette sometime soon in the TP15s. #strengthandconditioning #aclrecovery #rugbyunion #tp15 #womenssport #womensrugby

The 3 deadliest forms of warfare known to man!

Dug this one out today for the annual Truro submission wrestling tournament. This usually forms part of our summer training programme. The benefits are:
Strength endurance – 5 mins physically resisting someone else is hard work!
Learning control of your own body (and someone else’s)
Cognitive development – wrestling is like a game of chess. You have to plan 3 moves in advance
Resilience – going against someone bigger and stronger than you can be a scary prospect, especially if they’re trying to pin you to the floor, choke you or submit you…and there’s always someone bigger and stronger
It’s FUN!!

As COVID restrictions have mostly lifted, I had the opportunity to go and receive my Prestige Award for Personal Trainer of the Year.

It’s been truly humbling to receive an award recognising my work. I’ve been really lucky to work with some exceptional individuals, teams and coaches and this award is really a reflection of all the hard work they’ve put in the past 7 years.

I should specifically say thanks to my darling wife for her support and encouragement when I first started out on this journey and beyond, Jon Rhodes for opening the door for me and his ongoing mentoring, Jon Salfield, Kevin Moggridge, Chantelle Cox amongst the many coaches I’ve worked with who have given me the opportunity, trust and room to do my thing and Ian Davis CityPlym and the rest of the team at the college for pushing my knowledge and skills to new levels. Thanks everyone for everything you do!

prestigeawards #southwestsport #devonsport #cornwallsport #strengthandconditioning #youthsport #plymouthsport #rugbyunion #britishfencing #netball

 L is a former 400m hurdler who competed at national level but switched sports to rugby union and now has aspirations to play at international level.

As a sprinter L has good top end speed and speed endurance but identified that she needed to develop her acceleration, agility and physical robustness for the demands of the sport.

Rugby union is intermittent in nature with players involved in a range of activities including but not limited to tackling, ball carrying, rucking, passing, kicking and chasing. Prior to commencing training L had been identified via the ‘Going for Gold’ programme as a potential winger in 15 a-side rugby or a rugby 7s player. L had signed for a Premier 15s club and was also placed on the England 7s development programme. It was therefore essential that L quickly developed the physical attributes and skills necessary to play at a high level.

Prior to starting training, I tested L for body composition using a Bod Pod air displacement plethysmograph, functional movement screening, and athletic testing to establish baselines.

Age	20
Weight (kg)	63
Fat %	10.3
FMS/70	60
Max CMJ	41.03
10m acceleration	2.19
1rm Squat	85
1rm Bench	55
Supine row	18
Weighted pull ups (kg)	17.5
FIT light agility test	1:13:07

L had trained at a high level in athletics but hadn’t undergone a structured strength and conditioning programme. We began the programme in the March 2019 with the aim of being ready for the beginning of the new rugby season in September.

• Phase 1a (weeks 1-6) of the programme was centred around learning new techniques, increasing lean muscle mass, general strength and maintaining aerobic capacity. Training took the form of traditional set and reps schemes of 4 sets and 10 reps at 50-60% 1RM

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	WEIGHT (KG)
BACK SQUAT	4	10	42.5
ROMANIAN DEADLIFT	4	10	35
HIP THRUST	4	10	60
REVERSE LUNGE	4	10	15
CALF RAISES	4	10	BODYWEIGHT

• Phase 1b (weeks 7-12) hypertrophy and general strength remained the main goals of this phase, in addition to reinforcing learning of new exercise techniques and training methods. In this phase I introduced the concept of super sets i.e. performing 2 exercises back to back with no rest in between. In the example below, I superset lower body exercises alternating between anterior and posterior musculature.

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	WEIGHT (KG)
1A BACK SQUAT	4	10	47.5
1B GOOD MORNING	4	10	25
2A SPLIT SQUAT	4	10	12.5
2B HAMSTRING BRIDGE	4	10	10
3 LATERAL LUNGE	4	10 each leg	10

• Phase 2 (weeks 13-18) max strength. Having built a solid foundation in movement capabilities phase 3 saw us progress to increasing L’s maximal strength in order to be able to express high levels of force, which are essential in contact sports such as rugby. The sets and reps scheme changed to a 5 set 3 rep pattern with increased inter set rest periods to allow sufficient recovery enabling L to push the window on maximum force output. Conditioning work switched to high intensity sprint intervals performed on a spin bike. This type of conditioning training works much better with strength and power training than traditional cardio due to reduced competition between physiological processes (the interference effect) and reflects better the start/stop nature of rugby.

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	WEIGHT (KG)
DEADLIFT	5	5	100
NORDIC CURL	5	5	BODYWEIGHT
BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUAT	5	5 each leg	30
HIP THRUSTS	5	5	80
ACCESSORY EXERCISES	3	10

• Phase 3 (weeks 19-24) power. Having developed L’s base level of strength the aim of this phase of training was to enable L to express this strength as quickly as possible. Rugby is a sport where the ability to express your strength dynamically and explosively is incredibly important, it can be the difference between breaking a tackle or turning the ball over at the break down. Exercises were paired with others that were mechanically similar, such as squats and jumps with the squats potentiating jump performance.

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	WEIGHT (KG)
1A SPEED SQUAT	5	3	40
1B BOX JUMP	5	5	BODYWEIGHT
BANDED HIP DRIVE	5	5	GREEN BAND
RESISTED SPRINTS	2	4	HARNESS

• Phase 4 (weeks 25-28) speed and agility. In this phase I worked with L to convert the strength and power characteristics that we had developed into “on-pitch” speed and movement. This phase consisted largely of plyometric training and reactive agility drills

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	HEIGHT
DEPTH DROP	3	5	60CM
DROP JUMP	3	5	30CM
DROP JUMP 5M SPRINT	3	5	30CM
20M SPRINTS	3	3

Throughout the 28 week programme L’s development was monitored every 6 weeks allowing me to see how L responded to the training. The results from the final batch of testing are shown below compared to her initial test results:

Age	20	20
Weight (kg)	63	66
Fat %	10.3	10.5
FMS/70	60	66
Max CMJ	41.03	53
10m acceleration	2.19	2.08
1rm Squat	85	100
1rm Bench	55	60
Supine row	18	20
Weighted pull ups (kg)	17.5	20
FIT light agility test	1:13:07	1:09:84

By the end of her first season of rugby L finished as 3^rd top try scorer in Premier 15s and went on to represent England Rugby at u20 and Senior Academy level and England 7s.

Hi everyone!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed being back training as much as I have!

We’re reaching the end of the first 4 weeks of training in the UK which means that I will be retesting all the fencers that I’m working with. In my last post I described how my training focus with everyone was to increase aerobic capacity and general strength and hypertrophy, so my testing will evaluate the qualities we developed in that phase plus establish some baselines for our next block of training.

The block of training the athletes will be training in is very dependent on the competition calendar and their individual needs but for most of the athletes I’m working with I will be incorporating some maximal strength testing and sprints.

Besides my focus on seeing how everyone responded to the past 4 week I am also speaking to my guys about recovery. It is important that as a coach I am mindful of the workload my athletes are experiencing (for many, this will include school sports, more than 1 sport and strength and conditioning training) and how well they are recovering from training.

Number 1 on my list of recovery strategies is SLEEP. Several benefits have shown from ensuring we get quality sleep. Some of the research I’ve been looking at include:

1. Poor sleep quality effect on lost competition, increased anger, tension, and decreased vigor Brandt et al. (2017)
2. Early sleep, extending sleep by 2 hours resulted in faster sprint times in collegiate basketball players, Mah et al. (2011)
3. An average of less than 8 hours sleep increased injury risk by more than double, Milewski et al. (2017)
4. Less than 7 hours sleep increase likelihood to develop an infection by 3 times, Cohen et al. (2009)
5. Sleep affects testosterone levels and can be 10-15% lower than normal in men restricted to less than 5 hours sleep per night, Leproult & Cauter (2005)
6. Lack of sleep slows skill development, Pallesen et al. (2017)

So if sleep is really that important, what can we do to improve sleep quality? Here are some ideas:

4 years ago when I first started coaching Merryn I said she would be one to watch. Tonight she’s in the match day squad for England against France. I had the pleasure of coaching Merryn for 2 years before she moved on to Exeter and it’s been incredible watching her progress from playing week in week out in the Premiership at 17 to representing England u20s and Senior Academy and now stepping up into the Red Roses. I can’t wait to see her performing on the big stage.

Seeing young people grow as people and athletes is the most rewarding part of my job. Here’s what Merryn’s mum said about our time working together:

Just a quick note to say a big thank you for your help over the summer and ongoing advice. The gym sessions in particular were a huge benefit prior to her first season at Exeter College, you have a great ability to make your athletes feel at ease. The areas worked on have built Merryn’s overall strength, agility and core strength. It’s not just the physical development either, her overall confidence has grown enormously and continues to with your ongoing support. Thank you also for your help with nutrition and always being at the end of the phone if she has any concerns.

Her overall physical development is huge and a great platform for her progression into Bristol Ladies Rugby this year. She is now able to go to the gym with good all round knowledge and technique. I have no doubt that your influence was instrumental in her progression into the Premiership and notably earlier this year into National TDG, and we are very grateful for that. I would recommend you to any young athletes looking to progress at a realistic pace with a coach who has the knack of getting the best out of them! #strengthandconditioning #englandrugby #rfu #womensrugby #girlsrugby #youthsports #southwestsport

Let’s go Truro!

Caiti and Will have both worked incredibly hard to be British number 1 and earn the right to fight to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

Good luck team and to all the other athletes representing GB!