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. Coach like a Jedi, not like a Sith Lord.

   4th May 2016 8:36 am

   Happy Star Wars Day

   “A Jedi gains power through understanding and a Sith gains understanding through power” says Senator Palpatine in Attack of the Clones. 

   If you want to coach like a Jedi, study hard and for long, learn from your experiences.

   I see quite a few young coaches who have graduated from their University courses calling themselves “experts” at 21 years old. 

   6 Comments | Read More | Coaching

2. Should I drink Red Bull?

   3rd May 2016 7:45 pm

   Should I drink Red Bull?

   Is one of our most asked questions from athletes we train. I have seen the misuse of this on young athletes, where they were asked to refrain from chocolate and caffeine for 6 weeks. Then, 10 minutes before their first International match, they were dosed with Red Bull by the team “Doctor”.

   5 Comments | Read More | hydration

3. 13 lessons from Musculo skeletal screenings

   30th April 2016 3:54 pm

   Having conducted over 80 musculo skeletal screenings with athletes from a huge variety of sports in the last year with a physiotherapist it is time to offer some reflections.
   Establishing a rapport is key for the screening to go well, and I would say that in all but 2 of them, we have managed between us to do that.

   0 Comments | Read More | musculo skeletal screening, physiotherapist

4. stuff and nonsense

   27th April 2016 1:35 pm

   …admonitions sound equally trustworthy. Both come from a respected source and are delivered with a solemn earnestness that commands respect and demands obedience. The same goes for propositions about the world, about morality and about human nature. And, very likely, when the child grows up and has children of her own, she will naturally pass the whole lot on to her own children- nonsense as well as sense- using the same infectious gravitas of manner. (Dawkins, The God Delusion).
   

   0 Comments | Read More |

5. Football Speed Training: Frans Bosch

   25th April 2016 10:58 am

   We (the Dutch) lost the World Cup Final against Germany in 1974, our biggest trauma after the war.

   One of the players in the famous ‘74 team, Willem van Hanegem, was interviewed some two decades later by a soccer magazine. One question was, what his reply would be to a wide spread opinion that we lost, because he was very, very slow.

   6 Comments | Read More | football, speed training

6. Is Popeye eating the wrong vegetable?

   16th April 2016 10:01 am

   There is a current debate going on amongst academics (with apparently too much time on their hands!) about a misplaced decimal point in the original research that cited spinach as a great source of iron.

   3 Comments | Read More | sports nutrition

7. Books read in 2016 so far

   11th April 2016 3:22 pm

   A list of books I have read so far in 2016 (Updated April, includes some excellent coaching and leadership books). Hellicona Spring: Brian Aldiss. Classic British SF novel. Leading: Alex Ferguson with Michael Moritz. Patchy book from the Manchester United Manager. Some great insights, but poorly written. Epilogue is excellent. The Dispossessed: Ursula Le Guin. […]

   0 Comments | Read More | book review

8. Excelsior ADC  Update for Summer Term

   7th April 2016 12:13 pm

   Club Update Here is a summary of Club activity and important information for all Club members. You can skip to your relevant heading for details of upcoming training, but you might also like to see how other members are progressing. Thanks very much to everyone who has been helping out with ideas, suggestions and ferrying […]

   0 Comments | Read More | excelsior adc

9. Strongman Training

   6:31 am

   Strongman training can be seen as a specific sporting event or as a sexy functional exercise that shows innovation and is used as a gimmic.
   

   0 Comments | Read More | strongman

10. Core stability training

    31st March 2016 1:12 pm

    I don’t like the phrase core stability, instead just using the term core strength. A recent study looked at trunk muscle activation during 3 stability ball exercises and compared that to 50-100% of maximum deadlifts and squats.
    

    0 Comments | Read More | core training