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.

Comments are welcome (please leave your name) and you can subscribe by clicking on the RSS feed.

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

James Marshall

1. Confucius and Reading

   13th August 2010 8:01 am

   “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”

   Confucius.

    

    

   0 Comments | Read More | clothing

2. Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

   11th August 2010 9:38 am

   I am just about to embark on a 10 day Marathon trip working around the country.

   Truro, Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Henley- In -Arden, Grantham and Newcastle.

   The good news is the variety of work and the great people I will be trainign and working with. The bad news is the dead time spent travelling.

   I have to be self disciplined on the eating and exercising front, as well as getting to see the family.

   Should be fun!

   0 Comments | Read More |

3. Training mixed groups

   21st July 2010 8:12 am

   It is quite challenging training groups of athletes from different sports and at different ages and stages of development as a group.

   1 Comment | Read More | book review

4. Athlete empowerment- gone too far?

   20th July 2010 11:21 am

   One of the buzz catchphrases for the last year has been “athlete empowerment” when dealing with young athletes. The young athletes (a loose term, most of them are recreational games players)are supposed to be able to choose what type of training programme they follow, and even give feedback on it.

   Has this gone too far?

   Is this an excuse for athletes to dictate how and where they train,

   1 Comment | Read More | equestrian, fitness, reading

5. PE Teacher Inset- Stanbridge Earls School

   1st July 2010 2:53 pm

   I did a 3 hour inset last week with the PE staff at Stanbridge Earls school.

   We looked at the principles behind LTAD and how physical development matched this model.

   We then looked at ways of identifying structural problems in the school children and how we could improve their structural integrity.

   1 Comment | Read More | creativity, running

6. Planning and Methods of Physical Preparation for Combat Sports- Mike Favre, Uksca conference

   14th June 2010 8:47 am

   Mike Favre works at the University of Michigan, and delivered this lecture on combat sports preparation, specifically looking at wrestling and judo.

   Having some considerable experience and knowledge in this area, I went along not expecting much, but open to some different perspectives.

   0 Comments | Read More | combat

7. Vladimir Issurin: Block Periodisation, UKSCA lecture.

   11th June 2010 1:54 pm

   Vladimir Issurin is a Coach with the Israeli Olympic Committee and Masters swimmer. His lecture compared traditional periodisation with block periodisation.

   He started by comparing training and competition days between 1980-1990 and from 1991-2000 across a variety of sports.

   3 Comments | Read More | overtraining, periodisation

8. UKSCA conference review

   10th June 2010 9:06 am

   Last weekend I attended 2 days of the annual UKSCA conference in Milton Keynes.There were a variety of lectures, breakout sessions and also some poster presentations.

   This was the fourth conference of theirs that I have attended, and I probably took the least away. ( I wasn’t going to go, but my alternative course was postponed).

   1 Comment | Read More | ballet

9. Milk makes you run faster

   2nd June 2010 12:28 pm

   I don’t think it was milk that made Marion Jones run fast.

   Be careful before setting someone up on a pedestal and working with young people.

   Everyone is only human.

   0 Comments | Read More | combat sports, goal setting, Issurin

10. Role Models- Coach versus athlete

    25th May 2010 3:00 pm

    Who would you rather have preparing you for a World Championship Boxing match: Cus D’Amato or Mike Tyson?

    At a recent level 1 S&C coaching course I brought up the idea of athletic development and having an idea of a great athlete to try and model yourself on. We also discussed how much of a role model a Coach should be and what this should entail.

    For me Tyson would provide a visual, psychological and emotional imprint of a boxer.

    2 Comments | Read More | doping, equestrian, hindu press ups, marion jones