Scottish Athletics Conference 2016: Review

Scottish Athletics Conference: Coach Development

Warm up seminar

I was lucky enough to be invited to present some workshops with Vern Gambetta and deliver one of my own this weekend in Glasgow. The Scottish Athletics Conference was organised by Darren Ritchie who did a great job.  Here are some of my reflections and lessons learnt.

The State of the Nation (s)

A universal underlying theme and message from coaches around the World was the poor physical state of children coming into the sport of Athletics.

Honore Hoedt from the Netherlands had some stark statistics from his country:In 1985 the average child spent 30 hours per week playing outside. Today, that is just 5 hours.

So, over a year from 5-6 the 1985 child would have played 1500 hours, today 250.

Over 1o years from 5-15, the difference accumulates from 15000 hours to 2500 hours.

So a 15 year old looking to take up sport today is already 12,250 hours behind their 1985 equivalent!

Physical Preparation is essential

Lunge pattern

This means that technical training models developed in the 1980s are likely to fail today. They are assuming basic co-ordination skills such as balance, agility and spatial awareness all exist “naturally“.  An Athletics coach (and any other sports coach) has to have the underpinning knoweldge to put this into their training sessions to give the child any chance at all.

This is where Vern came in with his two practical workshops on foundational strength and warm ups. The idea was for Vern to give the coaches an overview of “Why” it is necessary, then for me to do the “How” and “What.”

Some of the things we included in Foundational Strength were:

• Squat patterns and corrections, including progressions and regressions.
• Hip to shoulder strength exercises.
• Dumbbell complex
• Lunge patterns.

A lot of the coaches seemed fixed on “knee not going over the toe” when doing squats, which is an example of a piece of folklore that exists without much substance behind it.

Warming Up Mind and Body

Med ball rotations

As we know athletes are coming to the clubs straight from school or work where they have been sitting down. Their minds and bodies need to transition from that to “Athletic” safely and effectively with an element of fun.

The warm up session included:

• Skipping patterns in multi directions to “fire up” co-ordination and spatial awareness.
• Hurdle drills for hip mobility and extension, with assistance exercises on return.
• Mini Band exercises for glutes and hips
• Medicine ball walking for hip to shoulders

These were quite challenging for the 6 “Volunteers” who kindly gave it a go. This was important to see for all the coaches, as it encourages empathy for the athletes who will be trying these exercises in the Clubs.

Building a Club from Scratch

Excelsior ADC training

Darren asked me to talk about why and how I set up Excelsior Athletic Development Club.  I gave a warts and all talk on the journey I have taken, and what led me to undertake this immense and somewhat frustrating/ rewarding task.

(Read more here on this)

Summary

I spent quite a bit of time talking to Brian Fitzgerald, from San Fresno High School in California. He was presenting on “100m myth busting” and “Coaching 100m relays“. The latter presentation was excellent, and showed how it could be done to greatest effect.

Brian, Me and Honore Hoedt

I also had a great dinner conversation with Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows about their experiences with 800m running and racing.  It was a shame I couldn’t see them present too, there was so much going on simultaneously.

I shall expand further on things I picked up from Brian, Trevor and Jenny in future related posts. I shall be implementing some small changes this week on my own practice.  I shall be reflecting on how to continue coaching middle distance runners locally, of which there seems to be a big shortage, with long slow races being more popular.

Thanks to all delegates who asked questions and took part, and to all the other presenters and staff who gave very useful insights into coaching and organising athletics. Big thanks to Vern Gambetta for asking me to help.