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. Developing young athletes: Jonah Barrington

   12th May 2014 2:57 pm

   “Kids are brittle and fickle”

   Jonah Barrington, squash legend. I worked with Jonah for 5 years when I was Head of Athletic Development at Millfield school.

   He was always a great sounding board on things to do with coaching, squash and life.

   He gave a heartfelt presentation to all of the coaches at the school, and I have just uncovered the notes I took. Here are some of his insights:

   1 Comment | Read More | Coaching, LTAD, squash

2. An Accurate Observation Is Never Wrong or What a Coach Needs to Know: Thomas Kurz

   6th May 2014 9:07 am

   Human physiology (including its expression in human psychology) doesn’t change from decade to decade, not from century to century, hardly from millennium to millennium, so accurate observations of human nature hold true no matter their age.

   3 Comments | Read More | sports science

3. Young sports people in Oxford get expert support

   28th April 2014 1:45 pm

   Excelsior Athletic Development Centre comes to Oxfordshire.

   Easter saw the first Athlete Support Day of 2014 for Oxfordshire athletes, with 5 different sports represented. 

   0 Comments | Read More | archery, athletic development

4. Preparing to win: athlete support day review

   24th April 2014 8:24 am

   “If you’re getting into the ring with Mike Tyson, your warm up better be good”.

   Was the message of my first section of the most recent athlete support day in Exeter. We had 21 players from 8 different sports take part.

   The lack of preparation immediately before a match from young sports people constantly needs addressing.

   1 Comment | Read More | athletic development

5. Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: an overview. Mike Stone

   14th April 2014 11:33 am

   Mike Stone’s lecture about endocrin influences on hypertrophy training.

   A review of a lecture I attended at the UKSCA conference a few years ago. T

   he lecture was quite technical at a cellular level and offered an overview of different factors affecting the body’s ability to adapt to hypertrophy training.

   3 Comments | Read More | hypertrophy

6. Strength and conditioning coaching

   10th April 2014 10:34 am

   “Lost in Transition”

   was the motto of the recent Level 2 strength and conditioning course I ran at Oxford Brookes University (The coaches were kept busy going from venue to venue and task to task, we lost a few on the way sometimes!).

   3 Comments | Read More | recovery, strength and conditioning qualifications

7. How to practice: should we teach this first?

   7th April 2014 8:17 pm

   “Rather than teach what to practice, I should start with how to practice”

   This was the lesson I learnt from working with golf coach John Jacobs on a recent training day.

   John had set up a simple pitching task for the 10 golfers: they had to try and pitch 10 balls into some different spaces he had marked out with cones.

   1 Comment | Read More | beetroot supplements, cricket, shoulder

8. Beware the Volume Trap

   17th March 2014 4:39 pm

   How to improve performance

   If you are a beginner exerciser then one of the best ways to improve performance is to increase volume.

   If you are training for 20 minutes every day a week, or for 45 minutes twice a week, then increasing to 45 minutes 6 times a week will lead to performance improvements.

   0 Comments | Read More | balance, planning

9. 4 reasons why conditioning coaches hamper athletic development.

   15th March 2014 8:29 am

   Brian Ashton has written an interesting piece on his blog about conditioning coaches working with athletes. In it he quotes Simon Shaw who worried that young rugby players were becoming “gym monkeys” and losing their playing instincts.

   6 Comments | Read More | athletic development

10. Walk before you run, sports nutrition guide: Andrew Hamilton

    4th March 2014 1:54 pm

    A good way to develop a successful nutrition strategy is to think in terms of a ‘hierarchy of nutritional needs’. You can think of this as a pyramid, with the widest layer at the base representing the most fundamental dietary needs and successive layers above representing progressively more specialised needs.

    2 Comments | Read More | goal setting, Linchpin, pull ups