MATT LITTLE

General notes

• Aikido training – wikipedia link
• The Power of Now by Ekhart Toll – audible and amazon
• Andy Murray Documentary – Resurfacing – amazon prime video

MATT LITTLE

Matt Little 00:00
I mean, I was on a really steep learning curve when I arrived in Loughborough actually, and what I realised was how much I didn’t know and I found that out pretty quickly. I was working with some very experienced coaches who were kind of edgy as well, you know, so I kind of realised how much I didn’t know. And I was actually speaking to one of them yesterday, we were reminiscing about the days at Loughborough and he was saying, you know, should we kind of change from how we were in those days in Loughborough because we were, you know, quite, not tough on the kids, but we had quite sort of set strict values that we want the kids to adhere to, and discipline and all these things, and hard work and setting standards, you know, turning up on time, and making sure they had the right equipment with them, all these basic things, but we’re very tough on that, you know, and he was saying to me, “well, you know, I was pretty tough on a kid the other day for doing those things, and then got called into a meeting with parents and stuff because the kids would seemed to have changed, life’s changed a bit in the last 10 or 15 years.” And I said to him, “please don’t ever change”. Because it was because they indoctrinated me in that way and it was so good for me, the best thing for me, it was the best… if I hadn’t had that kind of, for want of a better term kick up the butt in that way there I wouldn’t, would not, be the coach I am today, if I’m any good today, I wouldn’t be the coach I am today. And so I said to him “please don’t ever lose that”, because when I see people, not not for the sake of it, not you know, being gratuitously tough and beating the chest but setting standards and being strong on them and I know it sounds like a basic principle, but actually think that is getting tougher and tougher to be that way, actually, when when working with kids, especially, but probably senior athletes as well, who may be a bit more prima-dona ish now and aren’t used to being spoken to in that way, or being disciplined and people being tough on them. I suppose it depends what sport and culture you’re in?

Ben Ryan 01:51
No, it does. I mean, I’ve been I was, I was chatting to a conditioner of one of the top football clubs in Europe and he talked about that struggle, about how the star players were were deciding almost everything as far as how hard they wanted to work, their workloads, their intensities, what they were prepared to do. One of the things I suppose, seeing your career progress is that those basics those foundations are absolutely central tenants to everything you do. I call them black and white kind of guardrails. So you just talked about that…and that’s something from day one that you saw, as if you didn’t have those, do you think you’d be able to operate how you want to?

Matt Little 02:30
I think I would have made a lot of errors moving forward, the better, better players and the older players that I work with, as I have progressed through my career, I think I would have tripped up a lot of times, because I would have shown bad values, unknowingly. And if I think if you show a senior athlete bad values yourself, they might not point it out, some will, but they might not point it out. But they’ll note it. And I think enough of those bad values, people start thinking “You know what, I like this person, whatever, but I’m not so sure they’re the person that I want to be working with…” and something when I’ve then stepped down the levels, since you know, so any new business that I have, when I’m working with players that aren’t the very, very best, one of the things they and their parents point out is, you know, your professionalism, your values, you know, your, the things you clearly hold dear, are clear to see. And so, so I don’t notice it in myself, but other people might observe that in me and say, you know, you, you have that level of professionalism, it’s clearly just a given that you do certain things, you know. And so I think, without knowing it, that’s really stood me well in my career, I think, you know, and don’t get me wrong, it was when I first got hit with these values, it was quite difficult kind of first year, you know, many nights, sort of just staring at the ceiling, when I’ve completely got something wrong. You know, even back to my very first team meeting there, where the head coach basically said, I was working at a centre where there was quite a prominent fitness trainer working with one of our best players was based there. And the head coach said, you know, have you been watching that person work much have you learned much from him? And you know, I was a bit wet behind the ears and I kind of said “not really, and I’ve seen him do a few bits but you know, I’m pretty confident my own stuff anyway”. And the head coach absolutely ripped my head off. “What the hell are you talking about, you know, you’ve had this guy on your doorstep and you haven’t tapped into him… what you doing?”. He didn’t say it as nice as that! And that was my very first team meeting, and kind of set the tone for the next year. And what they were doing was was setting my values, you know, and making sure I was… they were doing it for the right reasons, you know, to develop me…

Ben Ryan 04:43
But you were you were open minded enough to realise that, aware I guess, that that was something that you needed to improve on. I mean, you spent, you spent a year in the southern hemisphere in Australia, where where it sounds like you were in the corner of a lot of rooms, not saying very much. Listen to learn, would that be about right? Absolutely. And that was something I was so keen to point out to them before I arrived, because I thought I was putting myself in the position of the people that I was going to go and observe, to think “God would I want someone hassling me when I’m trying to get a day’s work done.” So my emails to them before I left was, look, you’re not even going to notice I’m there, you know, I’m going to be in the corner. You know, I’m not going to disturb you, if you want me to pick a weight up and put it away I’ll do that, but but just just let me just come and stand in the corner of a room and then leave. And most of them didn’t reply initially. So I sent them another email the week after, which I think made them realise, okay, if I don’t even reply, this guy’s gonna keep emailing me. Which I’m probably making a mistake, saying this now, because I’ll probably get a bunch of emails… I was gonna say, have you had this? Has this come back to you, have you had, you’ve had a request I imagine?

Matt Little 05:56
Yeah, I have and it’s something that I… it’s really difficult because someone like an Andy operates in such a closed kind of environment, it’s really difficult to just allow people into watch. So I try and do it in other environments, when I’m working, not working with Andy, you know, working with other juniors or, or even other senior players that aren’t perhaps quite, I don’t know, quite so kind of focused, I suppose as Andy’s is in his environment, doesn’t really want those distractions around. So I respect that. But it’s also something I feel a bit guilty about that I’m not doing enough of as well, because people did open the door to me and helped me, in so many ways, were so kind to me in so many ways. And I do think I pay it forward when I’m in the right place at the right time with with younger coaches. But it’s just something that you just feel like you can never do enough of when people have been that kind to you I suppose in a way.

Ben Ryan 06:48
That makes sense. And just just for the, for the listeners, you’ll already know this but the Andy that we’re talking about is Andy Murray. And Matt’s been, Matt’s been his conditioning coach for well over 11 years now. And Andy Murray, former number one, multiple Grand Slam winner, and has also had this amazing journey really where he’s been beset by injuries and, and stuff that put him on the precipice well actually put him into retirement and then put him back. So so you know, a tonne of stuff there that we think we can climb into, I guess. But if we reverse a little bit about some of the stuff that we just talked about there, and your journey as far as understanding what your core values are, are they your foundations? What other foundations have you got in what you do?

Matt Little 07:33
Yeah, I mean, I think getting your values, right is is step number one. But for, for me, where I feel like I have, I have succeeded in my career is I don’t feel like I’m the smartest person in the room. But I feel like my soft skills are good. You know, people said this to me, you know, before that, you know, do elite athletes have people around them that are extremely knowledgeable, or that they also are happy to be around and want to be around. And of course, there’s elements of both… course you need to be, you know, competent and good at your job. But, but that, that resonated with me a lot that how I am and how I behave, and how easy I am to be around was, for me actually, as important if not more important than anything. Because I have seen a lot of practitioners who are brilliant minds, but just no one wants to spend time with them. You know, so that, for me was a real priority. And so that’s something that I’ve really paid attention to, as much as upskilling me in, in the hard skills of my job is I’ve really tried to pay attention into how I present myself how I behave in different situations.

Ben Ryan 08:36
Did you learn those soft skills? Is that something that’s just a personality trait that you’ve always been pretty good at getting on with people? Yeah. Yeah, I think it does. It does relate to my nature a little bit. It’s something I wish, I think should be taught a bit more, as well. I think it’s something we could talk about more… Why do you think it doesn’t get taught as well? I’ve got my own views. I’d love to hear yours. It’s not that tangible, I don’t think, because a lot of is about feel in different situations. And there’s some different elements that go into it. And I know, I know that there is more talk about it in our industry now, which is great. But I don’t think they’re, I don’t think we learn about it. And I think the only way to do it is kind of role playing and situational things where you’d put people in situations and and ask them how they would react and set some rules for certain situations. Team meetings, you know, one on one coffees, group coaching sessions, individual coaching sessions, what sort of rules would we adhere to, depending on who you’ve got in front of you. And I also think it’s depending on your experience, too. So how you show up if you have no experience whatsoever, but are keen that you’re at the bottom of the ladder, versus how you show up when you’ve been involved for 20 plus years are two different things. And if the guy that’s got no experience turns up as the 20 year guy, everyone’s… they’re gonna get found out. Yeah, and vice versa. So there are lots of elements that go into it but they’re not that tangible. I guess it’s why in the last 10, 20 years, maybe we’ve had the advances in Sport Science and it’s coming in to, probably, as we, when we were both studying, that side of our degree is very different now to probably what they’re teaching in the lecture theatres now. But the the non tangible, the stuff that’s harder to measure, which is around this kind of the art side of it, the art side of coaching, the feel, the softer skills, is that what we would when when often you get labelled experience. you’ve got experience, is experience, the ability to understand that? Have that, I suppose yourself, you know yourself a little bit more. And also, you understand the various scenarios that are going to be popping up and you take a breath. It’s an easy throwaway to say, yeah, he’s got loads of experience, obviously, because I know that you can see your track record. But tangibly, what does that mean? It is, it’s it’s not being that kid that I was that turned up into that meeting and blurted out the line that I did. Yeah. It is that because because I don’t think my information has changed that much. You know, people say their work gets simpler. Or you start simple, because you don’t know much, you get more complicated as you learn a bit. And then you get simpler because you realise actually, a lot of that stuffs worth throwing away! 100%.

Matt Little 11:17
But but so yeah, that I think experience teaches you that as well, to sort of get rid of a lot of the noise in your work. But it does allow you to play two or three moves ahead in situations you, you see situations unfolding three or four iterations ahead of time. And then you therefore you can predict and take action prior to that, which then like you say, people think oh, well, that guy’s experienced, you know how well he’s seen that coming. But you’ve, you’ve only seen that coming, because you’ve seen it a bunch of times before and probably been burned the first time. So there is an element of soft skills and experience that is just going through it, and making mistakes clearly. But like I said, I just feel like there’s a mindset and values to people who don’t have much experience that they could make fewer mistakes in that way, and be better prepared for that. But then also to know as you go through your career, okay, now I’m middle management level now and senior management level. Okay, what are the soft skills that are involved in that now? Because, again, you know, that’ll be the first time you’ve been a middle manager? What? How should I be in this situation? You know, how do I present myself to my team of staff that I manage, but also the people that are managing me, in different situations? So just, yeah, I’ve had a lot of thought about that and, you know, put it down in paper and bits and bobs. But that’s that’s how I feel. That’s how I see soft skills is that it is linked to is linked to your experience and how others may see you as well, have awareness of that, I guess.

Ben Ryan 12:45
And one of the things that, for you, your experiences has driven you towards is a greater understanding of workloads with athletes. And just I guess, to put it into simpler terms, for those those of you listening, that aren’t working in this in elite sport, but want to know more about high performance, it’s how much somebody really can, can manage before you starting to see detriments in performance. And so it’s into two you would you’d split, I guess your workloads into two and external and internal? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And before we had all the various technology that we will come on to talk about the GPS, and the heart rate monitors and all this other stuff, was it your feel that told you when to stop and when to push?

Matt Little 13:32
It was but my voice probably wasn’t loud enough. As the S and C coach, strength and conditioning, coach in that situation, that I might have felt that players were doing too much in my gut, but that I couldn’t prove it. And therefore, because I couldn’t prove it, I’ve often either mentioned it, but didn’t really push on it. And that’s a bit of regret of mine looking back actually, that, you know, I feel like, you know, my job was to look at the physical performance side of tennis. But so much of that is intertwined in how much volume that players do in their practice. Because if I take a player into the gym to get stronger, but they’re already exhausted from a three hour tennis session, then actually that gym session is probably detrimental to that player. But I feel like I need my slice of the cake so I then take him in there anyway anyway, and do my gym session. But actually, the best form of working is to have the conversation with the tennis coach to say “could you do a lighter day when I go into the gym?” Simple as that. But I didn’t have numbers to back it up. So to tell a tennis coach, “look, you need to be doing less with your player” when they’re under pressure for results and improving technique and tactics and all of these things is a very, very kind of weak argument in many respects. You know, anyone who’s negotiated knows you’ve got to start with a position of strength. And certainly in my job having facts and data to back that up is invaluable really. And I think people shy away from data a little bit, you know, because they think it can get over complicated and ruin the art of coaching. But for me, that’s not the point of it at all. It’s it’s to have some facts. I had an interesting conversation with a coach the other day about the the data that I collect in tennis, simply saying, you know, you need a harder day, followed by a lighter day or two hard days followed by a lighter day. Simple as that the conversation and he said to me, “Don’t you think that that’s something that good coaches kind of do? Don’t you think that’s something that good coaches kind of know already?” And it hit me a little bit, because no one has said that to me before? And I thought yes, and no, because good coaches would feel it. But I think you need to know how hard is the hard day in in a number, one number, how hard is a hard day, and how light is a light day, you know, just to have that conversation more accurately. Because very often in tennis, if we do things by numbers, if we just say, by minutes, excuse me, right we’ll do a three hour session today and we’ll do a one hour session tomorrow, what generally tends to happen is if the player knows they’re only playing for one hour, they will bomb around the court for an hour, as fast as they can, and probably do more work in that one hour, than the three hour session where they have a good long chat between drills and all these things. So again, that one hour light day actually isn’t a light day at all. And what do you end up with when you never have light days? Burnout, an injury so I try and distil these conversations as simple as possible, because they really aren’t complicated. You know, heart rates, internal measures, or player load and external measures really are about having simple conversations around what is hard. And what is easy.

Ben Ryan 16:37
Do you think it accelerates sometimes then making informed decisions? I mean, I can think in rugby how, and we still do it, you’ll have a captain’s run day before game, maybe and it’s supposed to be a light run where it’s unopposed and, and they’ll run through their moves. But when you actually look at the data, actually, you can, you can actually see what’s going on, the decelerations, that they have, so many of them, that’s putting a massive strain on your hamstrings and your glutes and stuff that then can potentially increase the risk of a hamstring injury at the weekend. But the thought was, well, it’s a nice easy session. So of course, we’re not going to get a soft tissue injury on Saturday and they didn’t have the either the understanding or the facts or the data. So would you say that at the moment, we one of the things that’s now creeped in, probably I started using GPS in 2007 in rugby, it’s a long time ago and our physio kind of immersed himself in understanding as much as he possibly could. Now for those of you that are unaware about GPS, whenever you’re watching, pretty much most sports, now there’ll be a little kind of bulge at the back of the nape of a neck I guess is where most most of them are housed now because they capture GPS from various satellites around the world and and they give you information and that information at the start when you turn it on, there’s about 100 pages and most of it, if you’ve never used it before, I imagine Matt… I didn’t have a clue. And so you stick to your like lets find out how far they’ve run, how fast they’ve run, and then maybe getting how many metres per minute which in rugby was pretty important. Acceleration decelerations which I know, you’re you’re really into. We hadn’t really got our heads round at that point because kind of didn’t quite didn’t quite know enough about them. That information now, do you see that as a as an increase in in high performance? And if you didn’t have that are you suddenly going to, is it going to impact on Andy’s performance. Andy’s very data driven. He’s a very data driven person. When he’s preparing for a match, you know, he will want to see reports on the opponent, where they serve at certain times, you know, what their tactical strengths and weaknesses are, he will have a good idea of that himself and he’ll figure things out during but a part of the thing that maybe settles his nerves, before matches to be informed about these things. Other players don’t want to see a single stat and he wants to see all of them and pick out the best ones and so, so again, for me to use that data in his training is essential at certain times. And this is where there’s a really fine balance with this, that every practitioner in sport will will be aware of is that you can throw the baby out with the bathwater by using these things. And let the data become your master you know and be completely driven by data, which puts off off tennis coaches, it puts off s&c coaches as well. Because if you’re turning up saying, “well, how many how many metres Are we allowed to do today on your machine?” You know, Andy calls it my mate. “What does your mate tell me I’m allowed to do today”, you know, sarcastically so it happens all the time and so, for me, there’s particular times to drop it in and learn from it. And then you put it away and say, okay, we’ve learned that lesson now. Does everyone agree? Yeah. Okay. We’ll move on and just work without it. And that’s, that’s that balance. Yeah. And so you would know I guess if you’re, it would be obvious to most people if if Andy was wearing it in a game, you’d be, there’d be some some information there that you’d be using to give him feedback and, and work out how much load then goes into the gap between the games and stuff like that. In training for somebody that perhaps hasn’t used it before, what would be a key advantage? What would be if you had to put it in most simplest terms, that GPS unit gives you that that we wouldn’t have had 10 years ago, it’s just pretty much how difficult the session was on your body, on your joints and your muscles, essentially. So if you go for a run, and you feel particularly sore after a run, versus doing a slightly different run the other the day before, and you don’t feel sore at all and just kind of wondering exactly why that is then getting some, again, getting some facts and some data about just how much impact your body went through during that time, or how how fast you were going, is a really key piece of information for you to know that for next time. Not to say you won’t go on that run again but you’ll be better prepared, and you probably won’t as sore the next time you do it anyway because of adaptation but at least you’ll have a knowledge that that is the run that makes you sore. Therefore what, at what time in the week, should I drop that run in? Because I really feel that run is beneficial for me. And there’ll be certain days when I definitely don’t want to do that run and feel sore the next day? So it’s just to have that planning element around your training, based on just a few sort of simple facts, really. And will Andy question your data… it sounds like he goes hard to that. How do you find that? Some coaches don’t like to be questioned? In my experience, the better ones like it. And I’ve always kind of said that, the measure of a good coach is how well they can coach the superstars, you know, the ones that in team sports, they’re often maybe the mavericks or the ones that are outspoken. But if you can manage that relationship, well, then, generally speaking, you probably know what you know what you’re doing. How do you manage that relationship with the questioning?

Matt Little 22:02
You know, what, earlier in my career, and actually probably relatively recently, I would have had a lot of sort of internal resistance to those questions, even though I’d have answered them and appreciated the fact that the athlete cares enough to ask the question. So there is a good element to that questioning. I’d have had a lot of internal resistance to it, you know, my ego would have been a bit battered, “why isn’t he just accepting what I’m saying”, you know, “why is he challenging me in this? Is he doubting me as a person as a practitioner” and it pokes your ego a little bit. And I think the more experienced that I’ve got, you kind of let go of that resistance a little bit. And it’s not so much about judging you as a person and you as a practitioner, but it’s just someone asking a question about the data that they’re being given. You know, one of the coaches said to us the other day, you know, it’s very easy to be hard on someone else’s body. And that’s, you know, that resonated with all of us as a team, actually, and, and so actually, that’s what it’s all about, is Andy saying “Are you taking care of my body? my instrument” that is so important to everything I do. And so if that’s the case, it’s not, it’s not about me, it’s not something personal, it’s not personal, slight or insult. And so if I can let if I let go of my ego in that situation, and just be kind of quiet, kind of loose with it and answer in a very open honest way because often the answer is I don’t know.

Ben Ryan 23:19
Are you scared of saying that?

Matt Little 23:21
I used to be really scared of it, I used to be really scared of it. And now I say it so often it I wonder if I’m really any good at what I do! So often I just don’t know but feeling okay to say I don’t know, is is something again, that experience has taught me because goodness knows I’ve tried to blag it and got found out and that’s so embarrassing when that does happen. And again, experienced and elite people spot it within a millisecond of it happening. So very often, it’s kind of like, I’ll think of a good answer an hour later. And I know, I’m probably going to think of a good answer an hour later. So just by myself that time to say, look, okay Andy you know, that’s, that’s actually a really valid point. I don’t, I don’t know…

Ben Ryan 24:05
Do you think that the rest of the group in the, in the multidisciplinary team, so you know, you have a couple of physios that work alongside you, as well as Jamie Delgado, the coach, and then you have various bolt ons like sports psychologists, as well as Andy, do you think they know that that’s your style, that you sometimes take a little bit of time just to ruminate, work things out?

Matt Little 24:26
Yeah. And it really takes the sting out of the tail of those conversations, especially like, you know, it’s a harsh environment, you know, if you’re under the pump, everyone will jump in and put you under the pump as well, you know, because that’s just the way it is…physios under the pump about an injury we’ll all be happy hammering him in a nice way and supporting him behind the scenes as well. But you know, it’s a bit of a little bit of fun as well. But I don’t know this sounds a bit a bit out there but you know, I did about two months of Aikido training when I was younger, and the principle of that was if someone pushes you you pull right, rather than pushback. Yeah. And and I very often have that approach to these conversations. If someone says, Yeah, that data is no good. It’s telling me this and I don’t even think it’s accurate. My answer will be yes. You might be right actually, this might not be spot on, you know, it’s telling us this is this is how we feel. But you know what, I think you could be right. But I’ll have a look at it. And we’ll have another conversation, perhaps this afternoon or tomorrow. And that just takes the sting out of the tail of that conversation a bit so isn’t this me pushing against them? Sometimes there are conversations when you say, “No, no, I’m drawing the line. I’m pushing back today. I’m not having this today. This data is correct. And I’m on it. And it’s really important that we implement this data today for the safety of the player and for the benefit of the programme in the training.”

Ben Ryan 25:47
Yeah, that makes sense. I remember my early years, when I finished playing rugby, I was a teacher and I was trying to get sports science in as an A level, I just started the curriculum. And it was in a very traditional school where they just thought, well, you know, how can you get an A level from running around in a gym? So you had to kind of surreptitiously just kind of leave the curriculum around the anatomy and physiology pages around in the staff rooms. So you’d get some curious questioning then about the curriculum to try to get buy in? Yeah. And have you had to do that with some of your processes, tried to have a bit of an education piece so that they buy in, and then connect what you’re doing to their performance?

Matt Little 26:26
Yeah, I mean, for me, the best way to have done it with someone like an Andy is for him to think that it was his idea. Yeah. So we had a situation once we were trying to much earlier in his career, when kind of fought more fire in his belly. We were trying to get him to wear cycling shorts, to protect his groin. Who knows if there’s any truth there, but we’re trying to get into cycling shorts to play matches in, we went out and bought him a whole bunch of pairs of cycling shorts, this was in Australia, bought him a whole bunch of pairs, left them in his hotel room, didn’t open the box and didn’t wear a single…he might have worn one pair begrudgingly but then didn’t use them for the rest of the tour. We never mentioned it again. A year later to the day, we turned up at that tournament. And he turned up with a bunch of cycling shorts. No one had asked him to no one had mentioned it. And that just stuck in my mind of like, he owns that decision therefore he’s going to implement it. If I come to him with something that’s going to change the way he does things, his first response is probably going to be, is definitely going to be the question and will probably be to push back on it. Why should I change what I’m doing been pretty successful doing what I’m doing anyway? Why should I change? So if you know you’re going to meet that resistance, you’re either going to have to go full bore head to head…there’s only one winner there anyway. So actually, you go full bore head to head or you just drip feed little bits over time, play the long game with it and eventually hope that he adopts it himself as his idea and comes in the next day and says this is actually, I think this is a really, really good idea. It sounds over simplistic in it that I am being a bit. That’s not exactly how it goes. But those are the basic principles of it, is drip feeding little bits of information that over time gather momentum in his mind, or the team’s minds that actually this might be a really good idea. And if you do that, that I feel like the right occasion will present itself, where it will be the obvious course of action down the line. And then everyone goes, yeah, okay, now’s the time to do that.

Ben Ryan 28:32
Have you got any good examples where there’s something that that you’ve, you’ve really been keen to, to imbed and gain confidence that what you’re doing is right, and you’ve seen it, there’s been there’s, it’s kind of this happened in front of your eyes, that I suppose will always accelerate by and if they can practically see, yeah, actually, you’ve done this to me, I’ve done that I’ve, I’ve suddenly won this because of that change? The GPS thing is interesting, actually, because we’d been using a bit in training before, Andy’s key injuries. But then, when he had the injury, monitoring his loading on court became really important, measuring the amount of impact going through a metal hip, you know, is really important to do for the other structures around it. So we also measure his maximum speeds and things as well. So so during the injury, when we’ve kind of been pushing him to be as quick as he can be and kind of recognise “is he quick enough to return to competition?” That piece of technology has really helped us in him say to me, “Okay, Matt, I need to know how fast I am before I go out there and compete” and kind of gain confidence from that. So so using using the tool in that way, has been really quite beneficial for for buying in, in in that respect and his confidence in going out on the match court knowing okay, you know, I know I’m quick enough, I can do this. Yeah. So it was very useful for that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s It’s, uh, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times now where you either have been really well prepared for something and that’s given you confidence, or you’ve had the information that’s also added to that. Would you say it’s kind of, I always talk about trying to get athletes that are over competent, so that, you know, they have that skill set and that knowledge that that whatever gets thrown at them. It’s pretty bomb proof. Yeah. When you get that, occasionally, you can get overconfident because exactly, you think you can, everything’s covered. How do you manage that? Yeah, I can tell you a time when it’s gone quite badly. So, you know, I’m usually the person who’s coming to the team with some gadgets, you know, to try something new. Yeah, yeah, just pushing the edge of technology a little bit. And so I had a medicine ball, which kind of measured velocity and, you know, power through throwing the medicine ball which for tennis, if I could figure out or get some data on Andy’s kind of power in throwing the ball. And I can say to him, okay, let’s, you know, you want to get a bigger forehand, let’s say, well, then if you start throwing this ball with more velocity, and I’m getting data on my, on my iPad, that’s telling me you are, you know, we’re improving here. So I was so it was like the holy grail for me this piece of kit. I was so pumped to use it and I brought it to a tournament, I charged it up. I didn’t practice with it first, I didn’t even really kind of go into using it properly first. I brought it out just in the car park of the tournament with the the head coach who was there, the physio and Andy. I was like, guys, I’ve got this really great piece of kit. I’m desperate for us to use it now. Okay, let’s let’s see it. Anyway, they started throwing this medicine ball around in the way that it isn’t supposed to be used. They were doing this big tennis kind of loop to throw it right which was freaking the medicine ball out. And I was getting these really ridiculous bits of data from it, which they obviously completely destroyed. They’re like, Matt, what are you talking about? This is absolute rubbish, like, no chance we ever use this again, like, forget it, you know. And I was so angry because it was the holy grail for me for a piece of data or something that could inform our practice more, I’d been complacent and just assuming that they were going to buy into it, because why wouldn’t they? It’s going to give us an all the information we needed and they absolutely destroyed it. And I couldn’t I couldn’t use it again. There was no come back from that.

Matt Little 32:13
No, come back. If I even unzip my bag, if it’s even in my bag.

Ben Ryan 32:17
You’re getting it rinsed. Yeah. So, you know, I was so devastated. Because it was so important to me. And yeah, that was kind of, that was a big lesson for me It changed your behaviours then going forward. Did you feel a lot of athletes, you talked to some of the stuff that they want is the simple things. They want information about why they’re doing what they’re doing. And they want to see their plans. They want to know what’s happening for the week, so that they’re informed. And sometimes it’s not because they want to have a day off or know when it is, it’s because they want to feel as though they’re part of it. They’ve got some autonomy in all of this. Is that something when you’re talking about your multidisciplinary teams, there’s been lots of head coaches that you’ve worked with now? And actually, there’s been a lot of change. You and Andy have probably been the two constants, I guess that for me has two questions. Why have you lasted so long? And how have you managed to integrate all the changes when they come to still make sure that everyone’s functioning to the best of their ability? Yeah. Good questions. I, again, I feel like I come back to those soft skills that feel element, I feel like I’ve survived with Andy because I’ve known how to be in each situation, you know, I, there’s times to just belt up and stand at the back of the room and watch things and there’s times to kind of lead by example, there’s times to put an arm around everybody in the team. And there’s times when I’ve needed an arm put around me. And so having a feel for that and knowing when those situations are the case is something that I think I’ve done well, I’ve also just got this thing about my personality where I’m just not gonna, unless someone literally says, look, go, I don’t want you around anymore. I’m not going anywhere. You know, I’m turning up every day I’m showing up. Yeah, you know, and to be honest, even if Andy said, I don’t want you around anymore, I probably show up the next day That might get you in trouble. But I just have this thing where I’m just not walking away from from this from this job. And and I guess that’s kind of a testament to my my kind of working relationship with Andy but also my personality as well in that that come rain or shine thick or thin I’m turning up? So you’re loyal person.

Matt Little 34:34
Yeah, that’s one of my biggest values I would say

Ben Ryan 34:37
What happens when somebody, when someone is disloyal to you?

Matt Little 34:40
Yeah, I probably am more sensitive to that than anything. That hits me quite hard. I guess in some respects in in a cynical way that is that can happen more often than not in the world today. But especially when I have when I see team members that don’t have loyalty as a value, which doesn’t happen often but it does happen, that I see is a real red flag, like a big red flag. Because especially working in a small team around one person for so long, that balance of relationships between all of you is so easily tipped in the wrong direction with one person who has the wrong agenda. It can absolutely destroy things. And it takes months, if not years to rebuild relationships. Whenever you have someone who just isn’t quite on the same page, it always costs one person in the team their job as well. They always take one person with them. Do you know I mean? Yeah, it kind of they…it hits one person hardest, the ripple, and someone goes, a good person goes. And that’s the tragedy for me. And for me, I’ve always thought I’m never going to be that good person that gets taken with them. I’m turning up, no matter how acidic this situation may or may not be. I’m coming. I’m turning up.

Ben Ryan 35:53
Have you got? Have you got any anything now that… you would have had experiences where, where you’ve had to deal with those? And I’m sure learnt from them? Yeah. Do you have any warning signs now anything that you can see, there’s something coming here that we need to head off here? You know what, it’s an interesting one. But the private chat with the athlete is always an interesting one for me. Now, of course, there’s always situations where people should have one to one private chats with, with athletes. Of course there is, every practitioner needs that, that one to one relationship, that coffee or whatever, that that chat in the hotel room where no one else is there, and you have a heart to heart. And you never know when those moments are going to come. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Talking about the person who comes in and immediately pulls the athlete to one side. And wants a little bit about you know this about you and me here, I’m the person who’s going to make the difference here. That for me is a bit of a red flag, you know, yeah, I was chatting to them the other day, just me and them. And actually, he said this about you? Or what, you know, or whatever he said about, it’s usually he said this about another person in the group. All those little red flags for me, are instant. No, that’s not happening. Sorry, that’s not happening. And I happily go out on a limb in that situation, say no, no, this isn’t how we’re going to operate. Even if that was even it that then cost me my role. Hopefully, I’ve been around long enough for that not to happen now. But I think people involved see the good side of that, everyone else sees the good side of that, that you’re saying that for the right reasons. And actually, in the long run, that’s going to work out correctly, even if the the person involved who’s doing that can see that, if they are aware enough to see that which some of them are and change quickly. Some of them aren’t, then that’s a red flag and that’s something that I would, I would I would raise it. And the thing is, for me, is that I know, the cyclical nature of these things. Because I’ve seen so many cycles, we all have seen so many cycles in our roles, that you know that it’s going to come back around. And I just my my, my core philosophy is outlast them, I’m going to outlast these people,

38:04
As he began talking about that your body language changed, your shoulders got a bit higher, you’re puffing your chest out a bit more and your focus became a bit more laser like and it was, it’s obviously something that you strongly think strongly about, you know, I use the phrase, the standard you walk past is the standard that you become. And if you’re prepared to let those things, you don’t do anything about them, then that’s everyone’s standard. And that becomes our lowest standard. And we mentioned this a million times to people before but we’ve always always said with all the teams that if you don’t win that key tournament that you want to win, it’s not because somebody dropped the ball or or missed tackle, it’s something you didn’t do six months earlier, and, and and eventually catches up with you. And it’s only when your athletes and the people around, you realise that it’s about that consistent behaviour. I might be wrong here, but just just seeing your reaction to that. That’s, that’s, that’s hardwired for you that ain’t ever gonna change.

Matt Little 39:00
No. And isn’t it funny, you know, you talk about the, you know, your team’s performances and things. You kind of know when good performances are coming, don’t you? Because, because the right things have been in place for long enough that you’ve built some momentum behind it and everything singing. And, and, and you also know the opposite, you know when just nothing’s quite going right. Like you say that the atmosphere isn’t right. You know, amongst everyone who’s working, the training isn’t quite right, for all manner of different reasons that the player isn’t in the right mindset. You just know when they’re going to perform well, because all those things have been in place for such for for a period of time where you know, it’s going to sing, like great performances very rarely come out of nowhere, do they? They they’re built over a long period of time.

Ben Ryan 39:48
Do you sense that… when you’re in the moment because it’s very easy for all of us to retrospectively go, I can see why that didn’t work because we didn’t do that didn’t do that didn’t do that. And the opposite if if we’ve had a good performance, do you now, can you see it unfolding in front of you?

Matt Little 40:02
Yeah, and but sometimes, even though you know it, you can’t break it either. You know that these things aren’t right with the team or the training isn’t quite right because of one reason or another. But actually, you can’t break it. And that’s one of the most frustrating things that for one reason or another, that bad stuff has a momentum of its own as well that’s really quite difficult to, to break sometimes, you know, and then it hits rock bottom, and then you’ve got your chance to rebuild. And sometimes you again, you just have to let something play out until it goes rock bottom, because you know that by fighting it at the wrong time, in the process, isn’t going to work probably makes things worse anyway. And it’s so people who don’t work in elite sport, I don’t know who work in building sites or whatever will say, “Look, just tell the geezer you know, just tell him he’s doing this and then sort it out”. And you’re like, I love I love that. But also just isn’t that simple in elite sport, you know, I can’t just necessarily walk in one day and tell the geezer that he’s doing something wrong, or that the culture isn’t right, or the attitude isn’t right, sometimes

Ben Ryan 41:10
because it will affect what both your relationship and also ultimately his performance.

Matt Little 41:15
Yeah, the long term good of saying that on that day, isn’t there, that you know, your bang for buck for saying it on that day. So timing of these messages is like, is everything to me. That you kind of know, a situation isn’t right, but you’ve got to let it play out. Because, okay, you know, something isn’t right in the team and I pick the wrong moment to say it. Everyone in the team might just think that I’m defending my own position and I’m just trying to save my own hide for self preservation, which isn’t necessarily the case, like we talked about, you know, the poisonous practitioner or whatever. You know, if I just jump in right at the start to Andy and say, or to whoever it is, I’m working with and say, “This person is poisonous, this isn’t right”. He might think, well, well, yeah. Matt’s threatened by this person, because they’re doing something a bit different. And each point might feel like he might lose his job, he threatens him. And so I’ve lost the argument hands down, what I’ve actually done is strengthen that other person’s position even more. So to have those conversations actually behind the scenes a little bit and say, go to that person as an individual away from Andy or with the team, but away from Andy or whoever it is we’re working with, and tackle it in that way, or wait for it to play out. Even if there’s some some short term pain with that is better than sticking your kind of, you know, your line in the sand there with everyone. So I’ve probably contradicted myself in some ways, because…

Ben Ryan 42:51
No, it may it makes sense. And I think we’ve bounced around a lot. And we talked about it, we’ve mentioned it, is the ego. Because often that’s your it’s that control between that that higher more sensible self against the lower, more emotional self. And, with with anything in elite sport, but particularly when you’re with an individual athlete, where it’s easy in team sports for me if if somebody makes a mistake in the game, there’s every chance that you might over 80 or 90 minutes, clamber that back and recover that and but, but in your world, it can be that a something that’s gone wrong or mismanagement of that athlete or a conversation that wasn’t had that should have been had can absolutely derail your campaign. How have you managed because we’ve all got egos or to lesser extents, and, and certainly as as, as younger coaches, mine went through the roof until I realised that it was often making decisions that were totally the wrong ones. But but you want to kind of prove yourself and show that you what you can do works. How do you manage your ego?

Matt Little 44:01
Yeah, lots of kind of internal conversations with myself in hotel rooms has happened. I think I’m better at letting it go than other people. Still takes me some time to let it go. I’m better but I’m better than others, letting it go. I’ve recently read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Unbelievable, you know, flipped me, literally flipped me from one day to the other, but just letting go of that egoic state letting go of it, because what does it really that particular moment? What does it really matter? What matters is right now but you know, anyway, I won’t, I won’t, you know, incorrectly quote him. But that was a real kind of moment for me actually, even in my personal relationships at home. Winning the argument at home, letting go of that was massive. It was and, and and I I recognise that in myself as well throughout my career that there’s been certain arguments that I just let go off, because I’m not gonna win them. It’s more damaging for me to keep fighting them. So actually just let it let it go. Let it be, if it plays out for the best if you were wrong, and it plays out for the better anyway, well, that’s great. That’s a bonus, if it plays out and not in a passive aggressive way, but if it plays out badly, and it all goes belly up, and you have proven to be right, well, that’s not a good result. But but it was going to happen anyway, it needs, it probably needed to play out that way for us to move on from it.

Ben Ryan 45:29
Would you give any tips to any any coaches or leaders on how they can manage their ego?

Matt Little 45:34
I think to have that, that conversation with yourself. And first and foremost, be aware that its your ego jumping up and down, having awareness in that moment and practice it. Having awareness in that moment? Is this my ego that’s being poked here? Is my resistance to this and what I’m saying? Because it’s my ego screaming and shouting, and and it’s not actually what’s best for the, the situation…

Ben Ryan 46:00
And what would happen when, when it’s the athlete that you know, it’s their ego talking, and it’s and it’s not their higher self.

Matt Little 46:09
Yeah, there’s a real patience around that. And actually, it’s, it’s great to have an understanding of that as well. Kind of, like I said, about creating buy-in about a piece of equipment or some data, there’s an ego around, or letting go of your ego with it, but also recognising the ego of the athlete. And how’s my, how is what I’m presenting here, impacting that that person’s ego. We had it recently with with a bike session, you know, we’re trying to get more power output in the bike, and then we changed bikes. And it was giving him a different reading, you know, and I’m like, well, you’ve clearly lost power, you know, knowing that it was a different bike. But he was like, no, we need to go and find the bike that I was on. Because I haven’t lost that much power. I’m telling you, you know, I haven’t. So off, I went and found the bike that he was on before. I know, that’s his ego. And I know his ego is so important to him serving for a Grand Slam that for me to poke and prod that you can use it to your advantage as well, of course, bet you can’t do that, bet you can’t do this. So they do it. Course you can use that to your advantage as well. But also, you don’t want to remove that or or devalue that in any way because exactly what makes him who he is.

Ben Ryan 47:28
And when when we talk about that the physical workloads that that we can now measure the internal and the external ones, that emotional that emotional workload, you know, you can say on the GPS, well, obviously, sitting still on a plane, or travelling or having a difficult conversation from the external workload, it’s very low. But that could be just as detrimental to performance as something that’s going on externally, as far as you know, the amount of work you’re doing on the court. How do you it’s hard to measure. But well, I’m, we’re all working on that. And when we come up with it, yeah.

Matt Little 48:08
Oh, my goodness.

Ben Ryan 48:09
I mean, that. I think it’s why performance directors are often data, guys, sport scientists, that you don’t normally get the softer skilled people in those roles, because those scores are harder to measure. And we have talked about that. But I just, it’d be interesting to hear, has there been an occasion where you’ve had all your plans, you’ve got all your data, but then what you’re seeing is providing a different picture? And that’s the one that you go with?

Matt Little 48:36
Yeah, I mean, Andy will always try and prove data wrong anyway, again, that’s his nature, wouldn’t want to change it. And so yeah, he, he, there’s been times when I think, oh, my goodness, he’s, he’s really not going to perform well today, from a physical perspective, you know, based on what the data is showing me. But actually, you can’t account for match day performers, you just can’t. And he, he is one of the greatest examples in our sport of match day performers. You know, in the in the build up to a major event, his practice sets might not have been that great. Sometimes they might be better than others, but they might not have been that great. But that has absolutely no bearing on his performance in that tournsment at all. And the same with physical data as well. He may have just been subconsciously holding himself back actually. And so you can’t for me to go and present him data that’s poor before a major event would be a mistake one, because of course it has knock on effects the conference, but two because it’s probably not reflective of what he’s actually going to do out there anyway. You know, he, this guy, this guy just gets up for big tournaments and events as all the great players do in every sport. And he will completely and utterly outperform practice and data in those moments, so actually,

Ben Ryan 50:03
Do you embrace that? Is that is that is that one of your parts of the job that you you find fascinating? Because it’s yeah, you know, gives you all sorts of things to work on.

Matt Little 50:13
It just makes me grin in the stands watching it as well. You know, you’re just like, this is just so different to what I’ve been seeing the last few days, or even 10 minutes before in the warm up. Yeah, you know, I’ve seen him look absolutely horrible in warm ups, and then go out and perform in front of 1000s of people against a tough opponent, and absolutely dismantle them. And half an hour before was looking horrendous. Like, truly, you know, and that doesn’t happen often. But it happens.

Ben Ryan 50:41
And you don’t panic, I guess, because you’ve seen it and you understand it. One of the one of the other things, I guess we haven’t talked about too much, and I don’t want to spend a long time on it. But those moments, are they where you get your satisfaction from what you know, why why you do what you do?

Matt Little 50:57
Yeah, I mean, every weeks filled with moments like that, actually. I think I do what I do as well, because of the relationships and the people that I have involved as well. You know, I think if I quit this job I, you know, I think a lot of people say that they miss the locker room, I would miss the relationships, more than anything, more than you know, the big tournaments are great to go and see them perform. Of course they are. But it is that day to day struggle. And when things go right, and when it all clicks. And when you’re all working off the same, singing off the same hymn sheet and and you can see progress happening. You’re all, you know, you build that momentum. Those are the real, the real buzz moments, and then of course, okay, yes, you then see the performance. But sometimes that happens, you don’t get what you want. He doesn’t get what he wants in the competition. So actually, it’s it is that it is the relationships and the process actually, that’s the fun part for me, because actually, the performance is all about him. He is the performer, you know, he brings that that additional X factor to matches. That’s him. That’s that’s not that’s nothing to do with us as a team.

Ben Ryan 52:07
Do you hang on to though if if you’ve had a disappointment? Does that linger for a long time for you? Gee, I mean, is it does it does it trail into everything every other part of your life?

Matt Little 52:18
Yeah, I think particularly when the process is bad, that’s when it hurts. I think obviously, when Andy loses the match, he’s hurting a lot. We are disappointed as a team. But the very first rule of that is show up again. Yeah, turn up in the locker room straight after and be there. Don’t go and hide. Be seen. You don’t have to say anything but be seen. But anyway, you know, it’s more when the process is out. You know, the times in Andy’s documentary where he was injured for you know, for so long, going home was I was just horrendous to be around. Because just nothing’s going right. You know, everything you’re trying isn’t working. And it’s just it. I don’t know, it’s this constant doom that’s just there with you at work every day, we are all turning up every day, six, seven hours worth of stuff longer sometimes and there’s this doom in the room about it, you know, which is just you then go home, and you’re just not a nice person to be around? Because because it’s so all consuming. You can’t snap out of it.

Ben Ryan 53:22
And would you say it hard then to have too many intervention because it kind of is what it is?

Matt Little 53:27
Yeah. Yeah, that’s the thing. You know, we we’ve had different experts come in. And with each new expert, there’s new, there’s new optimism, a new approach. So okay, yeah, we hadn’t thought about that. Let’s try that. This could work. Okay, this is looking a bit better. You know, and then potentially, a few months later, you’re back in that doom room again, you know. And that’s, that’s a tough process. That is, it’s tough for the athlete. But Andy actually said, it sounds a bit self absorbed. But Andy said after the documentary, I didn’t really reflect on how much it was impacting the team, because obviously, he’s pretty miserable to be around, understandably, but we’re also going through the same misery and he hadn’t accounted for how it was impacting on us, as individuals and a group as well. And it’s why in many ways, taking my wife to watch the documentary, you know, at the, at the first screening of it was a really nice moment as well, because she could actually see me coming home moaning about one more degree of hip extension, and, and hanging on that to be the worst thing that’s happened in the world. She could see the process that we all went through, you know, because she doesn’t really feel how real it all is, when you’re going in each day and you know, you’re pushing and pulling a joint around and chucking a medicine ball around or whatever it is, you know, trying to get this last little bit so that he can go and perform again. You know, they don’t, they don’t feel our will they don’t see those comments. On a daily basis, they just hear how was it today? Yeah, not much better. You know, I’m not sure where this is going, Oh, you know, gloom and doom. You know, when you say that to someone over three months and six months and nine months. In the end, they’re like, oh, shut up about the bloomin’ hip I’m sick of talking about the hip

Ben Ryan 55:16
It doesn’t matter how good that song is but if you hear it every day, eventually you’re bored of it. Yeah. It’s a great documentary. I’ve loved it. And, you know, anyone that’s listened to this podcast, they really should give it a go on Prime video. It’s, it’s terrific. I’ve got one more question really for you. If for any reason, you were no longer part of that journey anymore. What do you think they would miss? What would be the one thing that you’re providing that that that wouldn’t be there anymore?

Matt Little 55:47
I like to think that I’m the glue that sticks it together. That sticks the various parts together and that I’m the constant. I like to think I’ve been that for Andy down the last goodness knows how many years? Of course, my ego wouldn’t fall apart. Of course, it wouldn’t. You know, when I’m not there, the team operates perfectly, but I like to feel like when I am there, that that I that I keep things together, I stick things together. We we informally counsel each other you know, I feel like I do that well with the team. You know, I listen to what’s going on. They listen to me. I feel like that works well. When I’m there. And I feel like that’s for the better for Andy. So that’s, I guess what I feel that they may miss if I wasn’t there. But yeah. But with the with the restrictions we’ve had, I haven’t been able to be there actually a lot the time recently at the big events and and it’s funny when you’re in it, and you’re going to these events and you’re stressed about the process and how’s he going to perform and all these things and you are this this tournament is a real pain cuz he’s always stressed here. You know, when you’re not there. You do miss it. And so you always want when you can’t have don’t you but but it’s really made me appreciate Andy’s injury. And of course, the pandemic has really made me appreciate and it’s made all of us appreciate what we what we had.

Ben Ryan 57:05
It’s been a real privilege to chat to you, Matt. So thank you very much.

Matt Little 57:07
I’ve loved it. Thanks so much for having me.

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