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.

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Thanks for taking the time to read it.

James Marshall

1. How to increase golf club speed

   16th November 2016 1:46 pm

   I was speaking to Stuart (a golf coach I work with) about using the CNS to make athletes faster. He said he couldn’t see the application for golf, because club speed is developed by sequencing a series of linking actions together. 

   1 Comment | Read More | golf

2. Diabetes and Exercise: What the experts say.

   14th November 2016 10:00 am

   How Diabetes affects athletes

   Can I say how delighted I was to hear that Fran Low firstly has undertaken to cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats and secondly, that she is raising money for Diabetes UK (DUK) -the charity for people living with diabetes? Thank you.

   As a mum of an aspiring athlete (rugby union) and a Doctor looking after people with diabetes, I spend a lot of time thinking about training, keeping fit, preventing diabetes as well as treating it.

   3 Comments | Read More | diabetes, obesity

3. Coaching Philosophy: Book Reviews

   19th October 2016 10:44 am

   When delivering strength and conditioning coaching courses, we always discuss coaching philosophy and how to develop a club culture. Two books I have read this year have helped with this process, both by NFL coaches.  Here is a brief review of both. Win Forever by Pete Carroll (recommended by Mike Bahn) A frank and revealing […]

   0 Comments | Read More | book review, Coaching, reflective practice

4. Scottish Athletics Conference 2016: Review

   26th September 2016 11:32 am

   Scottish Athletics Conference: Coach Development I was lucky enough to be invited to present some workshops with Vern Gambetta and deliver one of my own this weekend in Glasgow. The Scottish Athletics Conference was organised by Darren Ritchie who did a great job.  Here are some of my reflections and lessons learnt. The State of […]

   0 Comments | Read More | athletics

5. Athletic Development Workshop at Christ’s Hospital

   14th September 2016 1:42 pm

   Athletic Development in action at Christ’s Hospital Last week I ran 2 workshops for some of the Sports Scholars at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex. Whilst the title was Athletic Development, the content was all about teaching the pupils about movement. Movement is the foundation of physical education (p.e.). So you could just […]

   0 Comments | Read More | athletic development, physical education, strength and conditioning course

6. Turn Up, Try Hard, Stand Tall

   5th September 2016 4:14 pm

   Excelsior Rules

   Excelsior athlete
   The south west talent crew
   These are the 3 rules that I set out for every aspiring Excelsior athlete who wants to be a member of our Athletic Development Club in Devon.

   1 Comment | Read More | excelsior adc

7. Have you thought of using gymnastics as part of your warm up?

   26th August 2016 8:57 am

   How can gymnastics help prepare me for a collision sport?

   Gymnastics: a sport based on perfecting skills and techniques. What you practice at training is exactly what you will perform at competition.

   Field sports: sports based on quick decision making, tactics and game play. No game or match is ever the same.

   25 Comments | Read More | gymnastics, warm up

8. How a good coach can help you become a winner

   25th August 2016 10:08 am

   Why hiring an expert coach will save you time and money

   Young athletes (and their parents) are overwhelmed with information from varying sources that is often conflicting. It is my job to help them navigate the maelstrom.

   Originally designed as a concept to deal with organising and displaying online information and layouts, information architecture could as easily be applied to coaching.

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

9. Socrates the Coach

   21st August 2016 8:54 am

   The following quote comes from “The Consolations of Philosophy” by Alain de Botton

   and is a discourse between Socrates and his friend Crito.

   Socrates: When a man… is taking (his training) seriously, does he pay attention to all praise and criticism and opinion indiscriminately, or only when it comes from the one qualified person, the actual doctor or trainer?

   0 Comments | Read More | reflective practice

10. Swimming dryland training: Nick Folker seminar

    10th August 2016 5:06 pm

    Nick Folker presenting at GAIN in June this year. I learnt more in this seminar about so called “dryland” training than I have done speaking to swim coaches over the last 10 years.

    4 Comments | Read More | Dryland, GAIN, swimming