What Do I See When You Send Me a Training Video?

Athletes who have worked with me for a while will attest to this – I am slightly obsessed and love nothing more than deep diving into a problem to find the best possible path towards a goal.

So I love it when athletes send through video for me to review. For some athletes that might be every few weeks. For others, particularly when we are working through something, it can be almost daily. The question though is what do I actually do with it? And, more importantly, where is the benefit to the athlete?

Let's say an athlete sends me a video of a set of Romanian deadlifts. Obviously I'm looking at how they're performing the exercise. Is the movement doing what I intended when I programmed it? But I'm also looking at the load, the speed of the reps, whether anything changes as the set progresses and whether what I'm seeing matches what the athlete has been reporting in their training diary.

Then I need to decide whether I need to do anything about it, because watching a video and finding something to comment on is easy. Working out what actually matters is far more important.

I don't watch every video trying to find faults.

Technique matters, but there isn't one perfect version of an exercise that every athlete should reproduce. People have different limb lengths, training histories, mobility, strength levels and injury histories, so I am much more interested in whether the movement is achieving what we want from the exercise.

If I've programmed an RDL to develop the hamstrings and posterior chain, for example, I want to see whether the athlete is actually loading those areas. If the movement changes significantly as the load increases, then I want to know why. That might mean a technical cue, another camera angle or a change in load. It can also mean doing nothing.

Not every variation needs correcting. Finding something that could be changed doesn't automatically make it important.

A single repetition can tell me something. A whole set usually tells me more.

If the first few reps look strong and controlled but the last couple are considerably slower, that gives me useful information. In a hypertrophy set close to failure, some slowing is expected. If we're trying to develop power, I read that same drop in speed very differently.

I'm also looking at what happens as fatigue develops. Does the athlete shorten the range? Does one side start doing more of the work? Does a controlled movement become rushed? Those changes help me decide whether the load, repetitions and exercise are still appropriate for what we're trying to achieve.

Simply knowing an athlete completed 3 sets of 8 doesn't tell me enough.

The video is one piece of information, not the whole answer.

Let's say an athlete sends me a squat video and the bar is moving noticeably slower than it did with the same weight two weeks earlier. I can see that performance has changed, but I still need to work out why.

They may have slept badly, completed a hard track session the previous day or be carrying fatigue from the week's training. If their diary also shows they've felt flat for several days and their other training performances have dropped, that slower squat starts to mean more.

This is where the deep dive comes in. The video sits alongside the training diary, athlete feedback, previous sessions, loads, soreness and fatigue. Looking at those things together gives me a much better picture than any one of them does on its own.

The problem I'm seeing isn't always a technique problem.

Athletes can reasonably assume that if they send me a video I'm going to send back a technique correction. I will if that's what is needed, but the video can also tell me something about the program itself.

The load may need to change. The athlete may be ready to progress. The prescribed repetitions may no longer suit what we're trying to achieve. An exercise that made sense six weeks ago may no longer be giving us what we want from it.

My job isn't to keep forcing the athlete to fit the program. The program has to continue fitting the athlete. If I'm repeatedly coaching around the same issue with an exercise, I need to decide whether the athlete needs more coaching through the movement or whether I need to change what I've programmed.

Video has limitations as well. A camera only shows what is in front of it and the angle can completely change what I'm able to assess. I can't feel what the athlete is feeling and I certainly can't diagnose an injury from a training video. If I need another angle, I'll ask for one. If pain is involved, that can mean a conversation with their physio rather than trying to solve the problem from a video.

So where is the benefit to the athlete?

Technology has made remote coaching far easier. An athlete can record a set on their phone and send it to me from the other side of Melbourne, interstate or overseas. They can train at the gym that suits them and at a time that fits around work, family and their sport, while I can still see how the training is progressing.

For Masters athletes, that flexibility matters. Most aren't building their whole week around training. Training has to fit alongside everything else they have going on.

The video also gives me something I can go back to. I can compare a set with footage from a few weeks earlier, see whether an exercise is progressing and check whether the changes we've made are actually improving what we wanted them to improve.

Ultimately it gives me more information on which to base the next coaching decision. That could mean changing the load or reps, giving a technical cue, progressing an exercise, replacing it or leaving everything exactly as it is. I don't need to change something simply because an athlete has sent me a video.

I want to understand what I'm seeing, put it alongside everything else I know about that athlete and then decide whether there is a good reason to do something differently.

For someone who enjoys deep diving into a training problem as much as I do, video gives me plenty to work with. For the athlete, it's another way for me to see how the training is actually going, alongside their diary, feedback, results and the conversations we have along the way. Put all of that together and I have a much better picture of how they're responding to the program and whether we keep going as we are or need to make a change.

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