Blog

Welcome to the Excelsior blog. It is a mix of current research and thoughts on Athlete and Coach Development, Strength and Conditioning and personal reflections.

Comments are welcome (please leave your name) and you can subscribe by clicking on the RSS feed.

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

James Marshall

1. How to make Pre-Season Training Interesting, Relevant and More Fun

   19th June 2018 11:25 am

   I Hate Pre-Season Training

   This is often the thought of players who are forced to undergo various fitness tests and long slow runs as part of a pre-season fitness programme.

   Doing repeated doggies, shuttle runs and various circuits, with barely a ball in sight is enough to put most players off.

   It doesn’t have to be this way.

   38 Comments | Read More | agility, pre-season, speed, strength

2. Love to Lift: funding for women’s weightlifting

   28th January 2025 1:00 pm

   I’m pleased to announce our funding success. Our weightlifting club has received £1215.16 from Grassroots Grants to support women in returning to exercise. It will also pay for one of our existing female lifters to undergo their level 1 and level 2 coach education courses. She will then be able to coach, unsupervised, and help […]

   0 Comments | Read More |

3. A Movement Manifesto

   3rd January 2025 10:53 am

   A personal movement manifesto for all Humans have evolved through adaptation to moving in their environments. I aim to help people learn to enjoy movement and make it part of their physical and mental selves. Physical activity is often reduced to a number: “10,000 steps”, “walk a mile a day,” or ’100 reps’. By focussing […]

   0 Comments | Read More | motivation, movement

4. New book published: ‘Coaches’ Corner’

   7th November 2024 11:54 am

   Essays to help sports coaches and P.E. teachers. My latest book, ‘Coaches’ Corner,’ is now available to buy on Amazon. It contains over 50 essays about athletic development, coaching, and physical education based on my work over the last ten years as Head Coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. How and what I’ve coached has […]

   0 Comments | Read More |

5. Reflections from a Gymnastics assistant coaching course

   1st June 2023 2:03 pm

   A guest post from Kath Maguire. Kath is the parent of one of our club’s gymnasts. She asked about doing some volunteering a couple of months ago and whether there was a course she could do. Here are her reflections from the day. “I’ve been thinking about volunteering for a while now but as it’s […]

   0 Comments | Read More |

6. Getting Better at Practice: decision-making

   10th May 2023 9:07 am

   Playing sports at any level requires making decisions. Sometimes they are tactical decisions such as when and where to pass the ball. Sometimes they are training decisions such as which technique to prioritise or how much weight to lift. Players need to be allowed to make decisions in order to develop and succeed. The sooner […]

   0 Comments | Read More | athletic development, Coaching, LTAD

7. How to get better at practice: Intention and attention

   11th April 2023 3:57 pm

   In our Freestyle Gymnastics classes, the young gymnasts spend the first ten minutes of each class working on their favourite skills. Some of them do so with a laser-like focus, repeating the same skill as often as they can, while others drift from skill to skill, using different pieces of apparatus for a few repetitions […]

   0 Comments | Read More |

8. Teaching Games in Primary School

   31st January 2023 1:03 pm

   Last week, a Primary School teacher told me of their experience teaching tag rugby to year 3s (7-8-year-olds), ‘We practised passing down the line a lot but, when it came to the game, they didn’t know what to do.’ Compare that to the advice given by the Department of Education and Science: ‘At about nine […]

   0 Comments | Read More | athletic development, games, physical education

9. What is the best way to lose weight and get fit for parents?

   22nd December 2022 11:08 am

   Parents are keen to get healthy In the last month, I have been asked by three different parents of young athletes ‘what is the best way to lose weight and get fit?’ Excelsior Athletic Development Club was set up to help young people develop their athleticism and skills but adults wanting to get fit have […]

   0 Comments | Read More | goal setting, habits, home exercise, physical exercise, weight loss

10. The oxymoronic Talent Pathway

    8th December 2022 11:03 am

    How did people get good at sports before the existence of pathways and ‘talent’ academies? If you read biographies of a previous generation of sporting superstars there is usually a mention of a dedicated p.e. teacher or coach at a local sports club. Children discovered their love for the sport locally and affordably. They might […]

    0 Comments | Read More | athletic development, health, LTAD, talent id

11. My books of the year: 2022

    28th November 2022 11:22 am

    Tough to choose just one book It’s that time of year (or slightly early as I am trying to help those looking to buy books before Christmas) to review and recommend what I have read. I started listing back in 2013 so that I didn’t read the same books by mistake. I have split the […]

    2 Comments | Read More | book review