Examining your sport

[dan135]

Hi guys,

I guess the three things that intimidate me the most about becoming a full-time S&CC would be:

1) Developing excellent communication/coaching skills

2) Effective time management/organisational skills

3) Examining the demands and activities of ANY sport so an effective training program can be designed.

While I am sure that there are more aspects of the job that I am yet to learn about which I have no doubt I will find very difficult, these three are the main skills which I feel I need to develop the most.

The first two I know will develop with further reading, time and experience (and I’m sure i’ll be firing a few questions your way in the future about them!)

Right now though I am wondering what you guys focus on when approached to coach a different sport, especially one you are unfamiliar with, and how you analyse that particular sport to design your programs?

What would be the major things you would need to examine?
Is it easy to find journals and papers on most sports telling you what energy systems to train and work:rest ratios, etc.?

Regards,

Dan

[tomwill]

the most important thing i have learnt over the last year or so is, when it comes to strength training, to not be sport-specific.

i asked my strength coach about sport-specific movementsin the gym and he said he rarely ever does them. his exact words were “if an athlete can push, pull and squat they’ll be good at anything”.

as damian marsh has said before “all training is general”.

so planning and time management will come with time and practice but my advice would be to keep things simple in the weights room and focus on getting your athletes stronger and more powerful.

hope that helps!
cheers,
tom

[ashley]

Hi Dan, I must admit I have not changed to much from working with Basketball then into Rugby League and now Rugby, but then again I have always had a very limited skill set and have found a wee niche to work in, but I feel the basics of strength training will hold well with nearly all sports, communication and organisation are extremely important, doing the simple things very well and being able to answer players questions with honesty is a key, if you do not know say so and then find out, that will hold you in good stead for many years to come,
ashley

[dan135]

Hi Guys, thanks for the reply.

Definitely focusing on doing the pure fundamentals very well and keeping it simple makes a lot of sense. I was not so much talking about sport specific movement patterns but more so specificity in regards to the metabolic demands of a particular sport (ATP/CP vs Glycolytic vs Oxidative) and how or whether or not the conditioining would be set up to mimic them as closely as possible.

For instance i’m trying to get the dry land conditioning work for a water polo side, which i’m doing programs up for, to resemble their sport so I was thinking 4-5x 5-6min circuits with varying intervals and levels of intensity. Also because water polo is so upper body dominant, I was thinking of making these somewhat similar to your beastly circuits but more upper body movements.

Also with sport specific movement pattern training I know a lot of top coaches and athletes incorporate some into their athletes routine. I know Baker in one of his papers recommends sng arm bench throws to throwing, punching and fending sports, and a friend of mine who did PICP level 1&2 in sydney last week said Poliquin has helped improve a lot of his sprinter’s times by improving their tibialis anterior strength and he also said he recommended clean-grip snatches to swimmers to help improve their speed off the blocks.
So I guess there might be a place for some sport specific work, but used off a solid platform of strength and power built by doing the fundamentals really well!

Anyways, thanks again!

Dan

[onspeed]

Dan

after 30 years of working with elite sprinters and throwers my observations are the same as Ash and Tom … progressive fundamentals (except in the case of specific identified injury/joint limitations etc) work best

Shotputters do better adddressing basics in the gym such as incline press (200kg common) squat (300kg) and power snatch (130 -150kg) than any single limb exercise …. single limb gets worked well in throwing drills (heavy and light shots)

In my humble opinion the ant tib is also a bit of a red herring … anything that improves flexion-extension strength and range throuhg the ankle joint helps sprinting action but again on the track is the place … in the gym heavy basic fundamentals

but I am an old man fixed in my ways perhaps >>>

cheers and best for training successes

[dan135]

@onspeed 1344 wrote:

Dan

after 30 years of working with elite sprinters and throwers my observations are the same as Ash and Tom … progressive fundamentals (except in the case of specific identified injury/joint limitations etc) work best

Shotputters do better adddressing basics in the gym such as incline press (200kg common) squat (300kg) and power snatch (130 -150kg) than any single limb exercise …. single limb gets worked well in throwing drills (heavy and light shots)

In my humble opinion the ant tib is also a bit of a red herring … anything that improves flexion-extension strength and range throuhg the ankle joint helps sprinting action but again on the track is the place … in the gym heavy basic fundamentals

but I am an old man fixed in my ways perhaps >>>

cheers and best for training successes

Thanks Onspeed

The amount of conflicting stuff you read out there it’s always good to get clarity on things.
Your posts are always excellent, keep up the great work!

Dan

[onspeed]

Thanks Dan

I think this is a great forum – where people like yourself are asking great intelligent and far reaching questions and then we have people with the vast practical and commonsense experience like Ash

I think S and C is one of the better sporting communities because at the end we all love the same things …. ahhhh the sweet clang of tin .. warms an old mans heart every time he steps into a sweat smelling gym!

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