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. Coaching Resources

   2nd November 2009 6:02 am

   As a coach you may be asked to do things outside of your sporting expertise, such as writing contracts, dealing with the media or organising volunteers.

   A good place to start looking for advice is here: http://www.ausport.gov.au/supporting/clubs/resource_library/resource_library_-_topic_listing

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2. Rugby Weight Training

   23rd October 2009 9:20 am

   Simon Shaw was widely quoted in the press on Wednesday, talking about the number of injuries suffered by players:

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3. Forty Today

   21st October 2009 7:55 am

   
   Forty Today.

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4. Things I learnt in my thirties.

   20th October 2009 9:08 am

   With only 1 day left to go in this decade, I thought it might be useful to reflect on some things I know now, that I didn’t 10 years ago.

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5. Jenny McGeever- National Champion

   19th October 2009 2:13 am

   

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6. Where have all the girls gone?

   22nd September 2009 8:58 am

   We actually had a weekend at home where it was sunny, so I took my Daughter down to the park a couple of times each day to play. There were lots of kids down there playing: football; cops and robbers; bike races; some sort of medieval battle with toy axes , swords and bows and arrows; some climbing trees. Generally larking around, with various running, climbing, crawling, skipping and jumping movements being part of playing.
   

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7. how to look beneath the headlines.

   21st September 2009 6:02 am

   I got this idea from the Bad science blog- but a lot of the same principles apply to looking at research in sport and headline banners about amino acids making your testicles grow larger.

   This article is an excellent read by Dr Alicia White and the points should be borne in mind when perusing the men’s healthy fitness type magazines.

   http://www.bazian.com/pdfs/HowToReadANewsStory_vers03_26Nov08.pdf

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8. Fitness Targets

   14th September 2009 8:18 am

   A couple of simple targets I have been working on with some athletes:

   100 rope skips in 30 seconds- a basic start to show competency.
   Then try to do 200 skips in 1 minute.

   If you are turning the rope at that frequency, it becomes a useful conditioning tool. This is a simple number that the athletes can go away and work towards.
   

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9. Garbage Yardage

   9th September 2009 5:40 am

   This is a phrase given to me by a swimming coach – Alan reed- I work with. It refers to work being done with little or no end result except work. There is no purpose to the session, any results or transference to an improved results are purely by chance, rather than design.
   

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10. Weight training for sprinters

    4th September 2009 10:58 am

    How to get faster using weights.

    Following on from Frans Bosch’s seminar on running biomechanics, I have been paying a lot more intention to actions within the gym.

    The frontal plane, double knee bend society will tell you that all you need to do to get faster is lift more weight on a platform.

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