Neil Collins @_neilC_ is the academy sports science lead at Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, which is a category one academy of the English Championship club Wolves.

[Correction...in the podcast I introduce Neil as the Head of Academy Sports Science, this is my mistake as Neil is actually the lead sport scientist] 

Neil is responsible for the optimising the long term athletic development of the club's youth athletes, with a view to successfully developing athletes capable of playing for the clubs first team. We cover a lot of topics in this episode, especially the development of u7-u16 players to get them as ready as possible for the demands of elite first team football.

In this Episode you will learn:

• Who is Neil Collins and what did his pathway look like to get into professional sport

• Long Term Athletic Development - Philosophy and implementation

• How to increase s&c contact time with academy players

• How to go about introducing strength and conditioning concepts to young players

• How to monitor training load within an academy setting

• How young coaches can get in to professional sport

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