Life Is Curious Podcast Ep. 7 Bam Hennessy
In this episode, I visited sports performance coach and scientist Bam Hennessy at his gym in Helsinki where, among many others, he coaches the Finnish Women´s Rugby 7´s team. The gym, called The Clubhouse (@theclubhousehelsinki and www.clubhousehelsinki.com), caters for athletes of all levels and was founded by Bam and his Finnish wife Heidi. Our discussion centred primarily around the topics of coaching, communication, and our mutual interest in sports performance, while touching upon related topics such as research and social media. It was a fun and thoughtful discussion that I enjoyed immensely, with many useful insights to take away that I am sure you will also have when you join us to listen. You can find out more about Bam on Instagram either via the Clubhouse or his own profile @bamrugby. His aim in the future is to continue some sort of career in research, with a focus mostly on female team sports athletes, load management and the impact of the menstrual cycle.
Show Notes
01:00 - How to share information or opinions without worrying about it being misunderstood
04:17 A good Nick Winkleman coaching insight
12:18 What the job of the coach is
20:00 Being able to change your plan when it is not working
24:48 Leadership and different styles
29:19 Adjustments to coaching from the covid pandemic
33:00 Googling the opposite of what we believe in
37:00 The value of having a coach
43:40 What Bam does and defining what an athlete is
47:00 Bam’s research interests
51:00 How coaching and academia combine and differ…and the benefits returning to academics after long time in coaching
54:10 The female athlete and the menstrual cycle
1:02:00 What is evidenced based practice
1:10:00 What superpower would Bam choose