Blog
Beware of the Mom Taper
“Jodie can’t make training tonight because she is exhausted and worried about her homework deadlines”
A phone call, text or email late in the day from the Mum, and your plans for the night’s training session are scuppered. This is extremely frustrating as a coach. It happened to me 3 times last week alone.
Coaching the Millennials
Generation Y Me?
Sometimes known as Generation Y, this group of people are the ones coming into the workplace since the Millennium.
A bit different from the Generation X “slackers”, the Millennials have been hot housed, nurtured and been led to believe that they can achieve anything.
Read MoreDo you follow the latest training fad?
“When you start to coach, you coach the system you played, but you begin almost to immediately discard what doesn’t fit you or your material, and you look for what does . All of us are takers, but if a person can’t add something to what he takes from others, he should get out.”
Vince Lombardi in “Run to Daylight“.
Read MorePeriodised agility?
The balance between specificity and overload is a crucial one. Your agility can’t just be Organised Despair, nor can it be just playing games.
One way of overloading the balance/ control system is to practice transferring from stable to unstable surfaces. I am not a believer in circus tricks: standing on swiss balls has very little transfer to real sport.
Strength training for young people
“You never see an oak tree with huge branches and a tiny trunk”
Kathryn “Wiggs” Catto on a last week’s level 1 coaching strength and conditioning for sport course.
This was her way of describing to young teenage boys the necessity of developing strength in a safe and progressive manner.
Read MoreIce Baths- Giving muscle soreness the cold shoulder?
What is the current thinking on Ice Baths?
Success in sports depends on an athlete’s ability to perform functional movements, such as running, jumping or changing direction, to a high level on a daily basis. However, the fatiguing effect of high intensity competition and training experienced by elite athletes can reduce the quality of performance.
Planning your Training: Periodisation for Young Athletes
What is Periodisation?
Periodisation is the term given to the practice of breaking down an athlete’s conditioning plan into specific phases of training.
Read More30 years of strength training
45 today!
I first started strength training when I was 15 years old. My Dad had given me his old power bar and I started using that in my bedroom doing curls, presses and squats. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was doing something. I worked at my part time jobs for six months to save up for a set of plastic spinlock dumbbells and a flimsy bench with bar rack.
Sabre fencing camp
Sabre camp
It was good to be back on the James and Ian Williams’ sabre camp in Grantham, working with very experienced coaches, Army PTIs and an excellent physiologist (Leo Faulmann).
The Importance of Posture
What is posture?
‘Good posture is the state of muscular and skeletal balance which protects the supporting structures of the body against injury or progressive deformity irrespective of the attitude in which these structures are working or resting.’ (1)