RICHIE STAKELUM SINGLED him out as ‘the X Factor’ for Dublin’s hurlers. When Jim Gavin took over as football manager last year, he made a bee-line for Martin Kennedy and convinced him to switch codes.
If you’ve heard of Kennedy or the National Athlete Development Academy, chances are it is through his work with the Dubs.
All-Irelands hinge on a series of small decisions over the course of an entire season, and Gavin laid championship foundations when he brought him on board as physical trainer.
The GAA, and Ireland more generally, has not been immune to a phenomenon sweeping sport where bigger is better and “strength and conditioning” have become by-words for success.
But when Kennedy started to operate out of a friend’s living room in Portmarnock in 2008, he was determined not to mindlessly follow the bulked-up masses.
Jobs were few and far between when he returned home from Australia with a Masters in Exercise Science. Lack of opportunity forced his hand but setting up on his own gave him a chance to do things his way.
Now NADA operates out of much more sophisticated premises in Clonsilla — a state of the art gym which spans 10,000-plus square feet.
Alongside a team of development coaches, the academy has built a network of expert consultants which includes respected sports psychologist Caroline Currid and Dr Eanna Falvey, Irish rugby team doctor and director of the Sports Surgery Clinic.
It has also become an Irish partner for Athletes’ Performance, the world-renowned development group founded by German national soccer coach Mark Verstegen.
YouTube Credit: NADATeam
It’s not surprising then that Kennedy bristles slightly when NADA is pigeon-holed as strength and conditioning.
“We’re developing athletes and we’re trying to do it holistically,” he explains.
We’re not just developing their physical prowess, we’re developing other areas too: their nutritional lifestyle, their psychology and mindset.
We are trying to cover as many different angles as possible because if it they are going to reach their potential, it is a holistic approach that you need to take.
Even in a physiological sense, power and strength are only one part of a complex picture.
“When we look at an athlete or a player, you’re looking at 15 to 20 different physical qualities that you’re trying to develop at a given time.
“We are trying to do something unique. We are trying to look at the bigger picture. There are excellent strength coaches and physical trainers all around the country doing excellent work.
Our tagline is ‘enjoy your journey’ — the journey being from when you’re three or four or five and started moving and all the different experiences to become the athlete you’ve become when you’re 24, 25, 26 and reaching the peak of your powers.
Kennedy’s success has propelled NADA into the spotlight but its work reaches far beyond one team and one sport. At present they are working on schools programme which will introduce children to coaching and sports science at a young age.
Even in an age when number crunchers are breaking down every aspect of sport into minute analytical detail, furiously focusing on marginal gains, Kennedy still sees his work as a vocation rather a path to riches.
YouTube Credit: NADATeam
Teams are anxious to find their very own “Mr 1%” who can help them bridge that fine line between success and failure.
But away from the Croke Park dressing room or the Aviva Stadium tunnel, the obsession is counter-productive. Kennedy and NADA are here to redress the balance, to tip the scales back towards a more rounded approach.
And, as the company motto stresses, to make sure that the athletes who work with them enjoy the journey.
“Little small changes — if you can be a small bit fitter or a small bit tactically aware or technically aware or a bit mentally stronger — teams began to add in piece by piece the little inches that would help them get better and better. That’s just grown and grown and grown.
We’re at a point now where there so much thought and attention and detail and analysis on athletes, especially at the elite level, to try and get that edge and try to get that 1%.
Fundamentally, the bit that we’re concerned about is the other 90%, 95% — how to make sure the foundations are right so that when you do get to the point where you’re competing at the highest level, the 1% is valuable.
“There are a lot of groups spending too much time on the 1% or 2% and they don’t have the foundations in place and maybe that’s why they are not successful.
“Marginal gains, winning by a point or losing by point, that happens on the day but there are so many thousands and thousands of hours of practice and thought and thinking and meetings and individual sessions and improvements. There’s so much that goes in and then you arrive on the day of the competition and perform for an hour or whatever it is.
“Our whole thing, it’s the journey to get there, it’s the struggle to get to that point where you’re on the field or the track.
“Everything you’ve done before, every rep, every step, every set you’ve done, every meeting you’ve had, every goal you’ve written down — it all adds up, good bad or indifferent, in a cumulative effect to how you perform on the day.”
