ABOUT JAY EASTOE-SMITH - SOCCER PERFORMANCE COACH

My name is Jay Eastoe-Smith and I am currently the Head of Academy Athletic Performance at a Premier League Category One football Academy in England. I completed an undergraduate degree at the University of East Anglia in Applied Sport, Health and Exercise Science between 2009 and 2012, and I am currently finishing my final year of an MSc in Strength and Conditioning at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. 

Professional Career

My education from day one was geared towards being a sporting professional, either as a player or coach (technical or physical performance). Coaching in grass roots sport (cricket and football) and schools dominated my early coaching career, in which allowed me to develop essential professional communication and coaching skills that have been fundamental in my development as a practitioner to date.

I first joined a professional football club as a part-time intern (unpaid) during the 2011-12 season, working across the Sports Science and Science department in doing multiple roles. The aforementioned experience gave me a great foundation in terms of understanding how multiple disciplines work in collaboration to provide a high performance service to elite athletes. Following six months in a very generic role, I was offered a full-time internship in the Academy Sports Science department for the 2012-13 season, in which was the first year of the then brand new Premier League driven Academy Elite Player Performance Pathway (EPPP). During the first season of the EPPP the club invested heavily in developing a future-proof, high performance programme and infrastructure to best support the development of our young athletes. 

My first four seasons were spent continuously developing the physical programme for all players aged between 8-16 years old, with the inclusion of an age-specific gym and field-based strength and conditioning development programme. Alongside leading the youth development phase (YDP) and foundation phase (FP) sports science and strength and conditioning support, I also assisted with delivery in a the gym and on the field for our more senior age groups in the Academy (U18 and U23). After four years I was offered the Lead Sports Scientist role, working predominantly with the U23 squad, then in December 2019 my role changed to Head of Academy Athletic Performance. The current role means that I have to oversee the whole Academy Sports Science and Medicine department, including staff development, recruitment and review process, alongside leading all field and gym-based support to the U23 squad. Statistically, I believe I am the youngest person in the country in my role and I can only thank my current employers to trust me with the responsibility of running an elite athletic development programme at a fantastic football club.

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Coaching Philosophy

As a practitioner working with elite young, developing athletes, my philosophy is first, always be a coach and mentor. This philosophy is continuously consistent when working with athletes in a practical setting (field and gym) or when helping to develop a young athletes lifestyle (nutrition, hydration and sleep). I aim to be consistently positive when approaching each interaction with players and staff, whilst backing myself to bring a huge amount of positivity to any group I am leading or a part of. 

Competency is the main driving force behind programming and session design, with players having to ‘earn the right’ by being competent at fundamental movement patterns (squat, lunge, hinge, upper body push and upper body pull), before progressing on to more complex training methods and increasing external load and exercise complexity. Once an athlete is considered ‘competent’, I will include Olympic weightlifting derivatives, whilst predominantly avoiding the ‘catch’ phase where athletes are not competent. In comparison, where an athlete is competent at catching the bar in a ‘power clean/snatch’ and/or ‘full clean/snatch’ position, this may be included in their programme depending on whether it is a necessary component to help improve a physical attribute (e.g. eccentric strength). 

When working with either senior or youth athletes in team sports, my philosophy is that ‘relative’ strength and movement competency are the best forms of injury prevention. As previously mentioned strength developed in the gym will be developed to help improve sport-specific attributes (speed, power and change of direction speed), however I believe a periodised field-based training schedule is imperative for developing strength (lower body) in a sport-specific setting. To develop an athletes ability to cope with the most intense periods of a game/competition, supramaximal loads in training should be used, which in a team sport may be supramaximal high-speed running volume or total accelerations and decelerations can be carefully periodised through careful, deliberate planning. It is my belief that following a supramaximal loading day or training session, lower intensity tactical sessions work well to allow the athlete to recover and adapt positively to the stresses put on the central nervous system and musculoskeletal system, which in turn limits the chances of avoidable non-contact soft-tissue injuries occurring. The final part of my philosophy around developing strength and a robustness to injury in team sports is the use of maximal speed on a frequent basis. I believe an athlete should at speeds greater than 95% max speed at least once per week, to again best prepare themselves for the demands of the game, as well as acting as an effective way to develop maximal running velocity.

Whoever the athlete is that I am working with, their holistic development as an athlete is the single most important goal. Perceived or measured ‘strengths’ can become ‘super-strengths’ and perceived or areas of lower performance can also become a ‘strength’ over time, and although there are limitations to my knowledge base I will forever work to take that athlete as far as I can with the skill set I possess at that time.