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. Lessons learned from Lockdown PE

   3rd March 2021 10:18 am

   After filming 72 PE videos over the last year, here are some thoughts. To paraphrase Admiral Ackbar in ‘Return of the Jedi’: “It’s a wrap”! Our final PE video was filmed and edited last week: #72. We initially started by planning only nine when I first contacted Willand Primary School 50 weeks ago. None of […]

   0 Comments | Read More | motivation, pe, physical education

2. Primary School PE in Lockdown 3

   21st January 2021 11:12 am

   The Prime Minister announced Lockdown 3 at just after 8 pm on Monday night. At 0551 on Tuesday morning I had an email from Miss Hawkins, the Head Teacher at Willand Primary School, asking me if I would produce some more PE videos. ‘Of course,’ I replied. So, here we are again. Another series of […]

   0 Comments | Read More | pe, physical education

3. The Future is Now

   3rd January 2021 9:29 am

   Happy New Year to you all. There is much talk of ‘good riddance’ to 2020 and looking forward to a better year in 2021. Unfortunately, the vagaries of the calendar don’t make change happen: people do. When I was growing up in the 1970s, I thought the world in 2021 would include a moon colony, […]

   0 Comments | Read More | discipline, healthy lifestyle, new year

4. The Top 5 Books of 2020

   11th December 2020 1:05 pm

   Here are my personal reading recommendations from this year. If you are stuck for ideas for presents or for something to read yourself then read on. Like many people, I immersed myself in fiction this year and yes, I did read Defoe’s ‘Journal of a Plague Year‘ that held worrying parallels with this year. Because […]

   5 Comments | Read More | book review

5. Choosing the right equipment for your local park

   30th November 2020 10:26 am

   Regular readers will know of the work I have done with Willand Parish Council to improve our village parks. This is an ongoing process that started five years ago. We are gradually upgrading or adding play equipment and facilities in our village. Having a vision Willand is a large village in Devon with a population […]

   1 Comment | Read More | community, health, play

6. How to keep fit in your fifties.

   17th November 2020 3:52 pm

   Are you fit enough at fifty? The Covid-19 pandemic has focused minds acutely on risk factors that either prolong the illness or cause victims to suffer worse symptoms. Obesity, age, underlying health problems and ethnic background are four of these risk factors. We cannot alter two of these, but we can do something about the […]

   2 Comments | Read More | fitness, mobility, weightlifting

7. Post-Covid P.E.: The Health of The Nation

   30th September 2020 10:49 am

   As pupils return to school they will find that the opportunities to play team sports will be reduced. Physical distancing will mean that rugby, football and netball, for example, will be too difficult to administer. Travelling between schools will also be reduced: the risk of transferring the virus will be too great. Teachers can teach, […]

   10 Comments | Read More |

8. Should you measure your training load?

   14th September 2020 10:03 am

   The benefits and pitfalls of using technology to monitor training. There are many different ways of measuring the work you do in training. If you are doing a single discipline sport like swimming or running or cycling then you could use a simple metric such as distance covered. But using just one ‘easy to measure’ […]

   0 Comments | Read More | endurance, sports science

9. How to get stronger in pre-season

   7th August 2020 12:51 pm

   Why do I need to start strength training in pre-season?

   Well, ideally you won’t be starting from scratch. Hopefully you have been doing your foundation work throughout the off-season.

   This means that you are moving efficiently and can control your body through a full range of motion.

   4 Comments | Read More | pre-season, strength training

10. Willand PE in lock down

    7th July 2020 2:32 pm

    A summary of one solution to the school closures On Wednesday March 18th, 2020 the UK’s Prime Minister announced that all schools would be shut from Friday afternoon for at least 3 weeks. Head Teachers around the country frantically scrambled for information, ideas and solutions to help their pupils, staff and families cope. I realised […]

    4 Comments | Read More |