Wimbledon Fever

Wimbledon fever is sweeping the UK and whilst the senior mathces have so far been fantastic (even if Andy Murray is making life pretty tough for himself), I've been watching this year's Junior Wimbledon with some interest.

For the past 9 months I've been working with the Northumberland Tennis Academy, looking after the conditioning for their talented young players. One of the players I look after is Alex Walker and this week she came close to pulling off one of the shocks of this year's Junior Wimbledon.

After gaining a wildcard entry into the tournament Alex had a second round singles clash against the girls' number 10 seed Camila Silva of Chile. Despite being up against a player 268 places above her in the world rankings, Alex battled all the way before finally succumbing 6-4 7-6 (8/6) in stifling conditions at the All England Club.

Well done Alex and keep up the good work.

Wrightington Sporting Shoulder Conference

I've just got back from a the Wrightington Sporting Shoulder Conference. This was the second time that I've presented at the conference and it is always amazing to sit and watch the surgeons present the lastest surgical techniques (even if some of it is a bit tough for me to handle straight after lunch!).

This year was superb and I was in esteemed company. The surgical team included Joe de Beer, Lennard Funk, Giuseppe Porcellini and Dan Guttman. The line up of physio's was equally impressive and I really enjoyed the sessions from Ann Cools and Jo Gibson (something of a legend when it comes to shoulder rehab in the UK!). The gap between physio's and strength and conditioning is narrowing and I thought I was 'aggresive' when it came to accelerating the rehab process but I think Jo and the team that work at Wrightington are giving me a run for my money! As Jo said, she likes to get her patients moving day one after surgery (gone are the days of walking around with your arm in a sling for weeks), after all if the surgeon has done a good job then there shouldn't be problem!

I was delivering two sessions, the first of which was on Saturday morning and covered late stage rehab from shoulder injuries. During lunch I had a chance to visit the Charnley Museum at Wrightington. The museum is dedicated to the pioneering work of Sir John Charnley. Sir John Charnley was an orthopaedic surgeon who spent years at Wrightington perfecting artificial hip replacements in the early 1960s. It was a fascinating tour. We started off in what looked like a garage workshop. This was the hospital metal workshop where Charnley tasked the metalworkers with producing the early prototypes! We then looked around the museum, the displays housed the original hip replacements, tools etc as well as the original clean air sytem that Charnley developed to helped reduce infection rates!

After lunch I was able to relax and become a delegate for the afternoon! There were some fascinating lectures and I really enjoyed listening to Stuart Cosgrove talk about the techniques he uses to help power lifters and body builders recover from shoulder surgery. Stuart is a physiotherapist based in Manchester and was a competitive body builder himself (NABBA Mr UK in 1987, Mr Britain, 1996, UK Squat Champion, 1989 and physio to non other than Dorain Yates and Ricky 'the hitman' Hatton!) If you tear your pec, Stuart is the man to see!

The next day was a chance to get a little bit more practical and I took the delegates through some practical examples of the exercises that I use to help the clients that I work with get back to full fitness following shoulder surgery. This type of session is always my favourite as it is a chance to get 'hands on'.

As always this conference is one of the highlights of my year because it is so different to the majority of seminars that I attend. If you would like to look at the presentations from the conference then follow this link Wrightington Sporting Shoulder Conference

Seminar Season

Wow, what a week! I've just got back from Lilleshall where I spoke at the Football Association's Fitness Trainers Course. I've spoken at their national conference several times and have also delivered on their courses so it was great to be back in my old home town working with a great group of coaches. I delivered a practical session on speed and agility training and it has been interesting for me putting the session together to see how my own thoughts on this area have been shaped during the past 12 months. Sspending time with Robert Dos Remedios and listening to Marin Rooney speak at the UKSCA conference have certainly influenced my thoughts on speed and agility development.

The use of CHAOS training drills and the emphasis on the ability to apply the brakes are featuring more and more and it just seems to make sense when you are developing programmes for athletes taking part in a wide range of different sports. It just goes to show that you can always learn something new!

With a quick turn around I'm just putting the finishing touches to a presentation for a two day event looking at shoulder rehabilitation. I spoke at the same event last year and I'm back again to present a theory and practical session on rehab and return to sport for athletes with shoulder injuries. The Wrightington Sporting Shoulder Conference is a fantastic event run by Lennard Funk (great name for surgeon!) and I find it very humbling that me, as an S&C coach is invited back each year to speak to a room packed full of medics, surgeons and physio's.

My final speaking enagement for the summer is on Saturday 4th July at the County Durham Sport Coaches Conference. This should be a really good event and you can download a booking form from wwww.countydurhamsport.com.

I'm going to be delivering two seperate sessions. The first will look at fitness monitoring and how to use simple tests to monitor your training progammes. The second session is going to look at programme design and how to put together an integrated training programme.

It's a busy couple of weeks but I'm looking forward to getting out and about and meeting the delegates and presenters at each event, as well as having the opportunity to pick up some new information myself. Fortunately I've got a short break in between so I can spend some time away with the family!

Fat Loss and Fitness

I recently had a chance to sit down with Alwyn Cosgrove and talk through some of the fundamental principles that he uses with his clients to help them not only improve their body composition but to also improve general fitness levels.

Check out what Alwyn has to say during his interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpa5hz6v7_8 . If you want to take advantage of his top tips check out AFTERBURN, the ultimate 'burn fat training solution'.

Enjoy!

UKSCA National Conference

I've just returned from a bit of a road trip. I attended the UKSCA Natioanl Conference which was held in Bedfordshire this weekend, and I have to say I really enjoyed the conference (not a sentance I would have come out with a couple of years ago!). The speakers were first class and included several overseas speakers including Avery Figenbaum, Martin Rooney and JeremyBoone. There was a strong showing from the UK as well, but I've got to be honest I was there to see the guys from America (a chance to see guys at the top of their game in your back yard can't be passed up).

I really enjoyed Avery Fagenbaum's keynote presentation on youth resistance training. Anyone that starts by telling the audience that his laboratory is the gym is onto a winner in my opinion!

Two messages really struck home for me.

1. The best coaches should be working with young athletes - all too often this is where money is scimped and saved and graduate coaches and volunteers are let loose on young children, sometimes with disastourous effects. The best coaches more often than not work with the pro's and elite athletes. This could be completely back to front...if a better job of coaching and conditioning took place during the formative years then the senior athletes would have all the tools they needed to go out and perform. If you run a youth programme and are looking for coaches find a way to hire the most qualified coach available - don't rely on volunteers and helpers.

2. Don't be a supply teacher - make a connection with your clients. Your job is to coach and you can only do that if your have a connection with your client. Rember when you had a supply teacher at school - fantastic - easy street... and more often than not you could make their life hell and not really pay attention! Think about your old teachers and which ones had the most impact on your learning, I bet they were the ones who made a connection with you.

The second standout presentation was from Marin Rooney of Parisi Speed Schools. He delivered a great session on multi-dimensional speed and agility. The key take home message for me was the importance of having good brakes!Most athletes and clients don't spend enough time learning how to decelerate - you wouldn't drive a sports car with not brakes would you?!

He also had a great slide which summed up the weekend nicely for me;

K - A = 0

K = Knowledge

A = Action

0 - Nothing

I picked up some great training information from the presentations and made sure that I took action (in fact I've already been using some of them with the young tennis players I work with today!).

Well done to my friend and colleague Duncan French on organising a great conference, I'm looking forward to next year already!

Dave Wilson Starts For England

Just a quick post to wish Dave Wilson all the very best for Saturday.

Dave Wilson (former Newcastle Falcon prop) recently completed an intensive 3 week training period with me at Smart Fitness and will start for England in their match against the Barbarians at Twickenham on Saturday. All the best big man.

If you read the earlier post today about being chased by a freight train - I just need to think of Big Davey Wilson coming after me! Look at the intensity in that face - awesome.

CHASED BY A FREIGHT TRAIN

I was fortunate enough to grab an interview with Alwyn Cosgrove at the weekend and we were talking about Tabata training and how so many people just don't train at the right intensity. He shared with me how Chad Waterbury describes the intensity that is needed to his clients.

"imagine you find yourself on some rail track and you hear the sound of train coming up behind you, you turn around and see a freight train thundering towards you...your only option to run, and run hard. You try to out run the train for 20 seconds and just as it is about to hit, you jump off the tracks onto another rail track. Your lungs are bursting and your muscles are screaming at you but after just 10 seconds you hear another train coming and you have to run for your life again!!! That is the intensity - and guess what, you get chased by a total of 8 trains meaning you are running for your life for 4 minutes"

Robert Dos Remedios also talked about tabata training at our Functional Training Summit and how people pick crappy exercises - you should only pick whole body exercises that you can perform balls out for 20seconds.

I'm just sitting writing this before I jump in the shower. I've been out in the back garden and have been chased down by a freight train! My neighbours probably think I'm nuts but when your schedule is so busy 4 minutes being chased by a freight train is a really effective way of keeping myself in shape! I should stop sweating in a bout 3 hours!