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7th November 2024
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 […]
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Making athletes robust
ro·bust
(r
-b
st
, rbst
)
adj.
1. Full of health and strength; vigorous.
2. Powerfully built; sturdy.
3. Requiring or suited to physical strength or endurance: robust labour.
4. Rough or crude; boisterous: a robust tale.
5. Marked by richness and fullness; full-bodied: a robust wine.
[Latin rbustus, from rbur, rbus, oak, strength; see reudh- in Indo-European roots.]
bustus, from rbur, rbus, oak, strength; see reudh- in Indo-European roots.]ro·bustly adv.
ly adv.ro·bustness n.
ness n.Robust is a word I use a lot in working with young athletes– giving an idea of a goal to work towards in the short term before we develop them further. Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t know what it means!
Naseem Taleb in his book antifragile discounts robust and resilient because they just maintain the status quo. Instead “antifragile” means you actually develop and improve as a result of stress.
England Hockey talk about “robustness training” but then send their players on endless jogs around the pitch, then having them endure 6 hours of low level “busy work” on camps.
I work on an integrated approach, developing young players progressively, starting with a movement asessment, then into fundamental work, and finally into the full training programme.
Client Testimonials
Josh Steels: wheelchair tennis
I started working with James 3 years ago via the TASS programme. When James first met me, physically I was nowhere the best I could be. Since working with James I have seen vast improvements in my fitness and strength which has been put into great use on court. Each session is worked around making sure I am able to get the best quality training as well as catering for my chronic pain and fatigue levels. On top of this James has always been happy to meet at facilities that are best for myself meaning I could fit training sessions in on route to tournaments or camps.
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[…] as we saw last week, we are looking to make you more robust. This will allow you to do those movements Faster, Further or with […]