Table of content
A user case interview (Eliott Draper)
the difference in pure performance between being 1st and 20th is around 2%
Can you give us a little introduction to yourself and your background?
My name is Elliot Draper, I am 25 years old and I am a sprint and strength and conditioning coach. I founded my company, LITA Sports, in 2021 in Paris, France after spending 3 years working in England with the Speedworks Training team. I’ve been lucky enough to be under the mentorship of Jonas Dodoo during this time, which helped me understand a unique philosophy and approach to speed work. This experience allowed me to grow very rapidly as a coach and allowed me come back to France, where I grew up, to coach a group of elite sprinters.
What does your current role involve?
My current position involves a variety of roles. Sprint coach is the main one. Last year I coached Meba-Mickaël Zézé to be the 4th fastest Frenchman ever over 100m (9.99s) and 2nd fastest Frenchman ever over 200m (19.97s), but I also have 7 other sprinters in my group, including an olympian and 2 women part of the French 4x100m relay. I also am a private S&C coach for football and rugby players, coach athletes online, organize workshops and give lectures at several universities.
What made you choose Enode?
I chose to use Enode because I needed to quantify better the work of my athletes in the gym. The gym is a big part of a sprinter’s training and when we reach the top 20 in the world, the difference in pure performance between being 1st and 20th is around 2%. Considering this, every detail counts, and VBT was a big part missing in our training process. We wanted at LITA Sports to work with Enode for its long-proven reliability and easy-to-use platform.
How do you implement the use of Enode in your setting?
We use Enode sensors at almost every gym session. The great thing about the platform is we can create any exercise we want and the data we will get from those new exercises is still highly reliable. Exercises like box step-up, long lever hip thrust or split-squat jumps are exercises we have added in the app and that we use on a regular basis.
How has using VBT and Enode helped you overcome any challenges or improve your workflow?
VBT and Enode have helped in 3 main aspects :
– Firstly with quantification of load. Indeed, it helped quantify with more precision weights lifted by the athletes considering their readiness and physical state to remain in the goal of the session, either it be strength, power or speed.
– Secondly it has helped, for some athletes, to increase performance by giving them target velocities they would not have reached without that external motivation created by instantaneous feedback.
– Lastly, it has helped with general periodisation, paired with other measurements as HRV and questionnaires, to estimate the physical state of the athletes and give them extra recovery days when they performances in the gym dropped dramatically compared to their baseline.
