Top UK Sprints Coach Tony Lester hosted two workshops in Belfast last weekend for NI athletes and coaches. The first session was aimed at speed, and athletes were given the opportunity to take part in a practical session of skills and drills to help develop speed. Coaches were given the opportunity to analyse the performance of the athletes as well the basis of the drills. The majority of the SINI athletics squad were in attendance.

Tony is most famous for coaching the likes of Roger Black to a silver medal in Atlanta in 1996, as well as helping Denise Lewis in 2000. He is currently working with Olympic Gold Medallist Marlon Devonish, and World Number 2 Tim Benjamin. He caused some controversy last season when taking on board NI record Holder and GB number 1 James McIlroy into his ‘Sprints Group’. The focus of the second workshop was on his ideas on middle distance, and how it should be treated like a sprint when formulating annual plans.

Tony outlined some of the sessions that helped James to four new NI records last season as well a PB over 400m. He suggested that they had made some mistakes last season, and that further improvements were expected this year when the programme was reined. NI top middle distance coaches and athletes were in attendance and there was an active question and answer session around the issues throughout the workshop.

David Reid
Athletics High Performance Manager

Too often athletes turn to supplements rather than explore further the benefits of proper nutrition. This can be a dangerous practice as these supplements while claiming to be free of performance enhancing drugs can carry a risk of contamination.

The rugby squad have undergone an extensive review with SINI nutritionist Ruth Wood Martin starting with one to one interviews to examine their dietary requirements, giving details of their body composition (%body fat) and general eating habits.

This was followed by a series of shopping trips were Ruth educated small groups on the set up of supermarkets and how to calculate the nutritional value of individual items.

The Rugby Squad With Ruth Wood-Martin

Finally there followed a cooking display for the entire squad were they learnt how to prepare champ, chicken stew and beef tortillas before testing the results. The evening held at Grosvenor Grammer School was a great success and enjoyed by all. The squad would like to thank Ruth and home economist Lisa Whitcroft for an educational and entertaining evening.

The value of nutrition and its importance to giving the body energy in not new, Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach, but preparation for training and playing is often not scientific enough. The very best professionals always come prepared with snacks for post training and are careful about the quality and the quantity of their food and this is a lesson best learnt at the very beginning of a career.

Gary Longwell
Rugby High Performance Manager

2006 heralds an exciting, if demanding, time for an Irish international hockey player. The performances of the Ladies and Mens senior squads at their respective European Championships last summer resulted in qualification for World Cup qualifiers. These are due to be staged in April 2006 with the men competing in China and the ladies in Italy.

Prior to this, as with modern sport, intensive preparation will be undertaken by the athletes. This includes weekly training sessions, weekend squad sessions, build up internationals and two overseas training camps.

As well as the weekly time spends to accommodate 2 gym sessions, and 2 or 3 pitch sessions the international player sacrifices their weekends and approximately 16 working days to attend the overseas camps and build up internationals.

When, approximately, 9 working days are added for the tournament itself the commitment provided by these athletes, all of whom are either in full time employment or further education, to maximise their potential within their sport is staggering.

Success at the qualifier will lead to participation at the respective World Cups in September 2006.

An obvious highlight for any international athlete, it will, for the Irish hockey athlete in full time employment, potentially be recognised with a degree of trepidation.

The support of employers is critical to those athletes as they pursue their sporting dreams. While their sport requires a professional approach to preparation and participation, it is amateur in nature. Employment is therefore necessary for the athlete and several seek to maintain careers while competing in international sport.

Having utilised a combination of annual leave, special leave and unpaid leave to qualify for a World Cup obtaining similar support within the same year may prove a challenge for many.

Therefore, while there is excitement as our international squads move higher up the world rankings it is important to recognise issues this brings. As the sport seeks to move forward it is vital such challenges are met to ensure our athletes can enjoy the opportunities their achievements bring by being able to participate as international players for as long as they wish to do so.

Stephen Watt
Hockey High Performance Manager

This is the third year of this event although this year we were without service providers who attended a high performance seminar earlier in the month. The conference was specifically for high performance coaches. The venue was again the Belfry in Birmingham.

The conference was divided into two streams with Stream A attending Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Stream B on Wednesday and Thursday. SINI had 8 coaches in Stream A and 6 coaches in Stream B. Hugh McCaughey attended as a guest of UK Sport.

The conference was superbly chaired by BBC’s Hazel Irvine who took an active involvement in workshops and during keynote sessions. There were two keynote presentations given by:

Pier Luigi Collina – Retired FIFA Referee
Dame Stella Remington – Retired Head of MI5

Key points from keynotes:

Facilitator and Presenter: Pier Luigi Collina

Key issues identified:

• Referees are athletes and should be considered as such.
• Referees must prepare for a game which is faster, more intense and where more decisions are required in the latter stages.
• Referees need to be 100% fit and to do so they need a regimented fitness schedule, a specific training programme, need to use heart rate monitors and e-mail results centrally.
• Referees have to know the game, its tactics, new techniques so that they can read the game and the small games within a game.
• During the week study the teams involved, the characters, study video analysis and study the statistics.
• Player by player analysis essential – study body language – so 50% of work is done before the match is started.
• Relationships are important – referees performance is dependant on how you communicate with players.
• Referee must have courage to take important decisions.
• Referees also make mistakes – it is important to share these and learn from their mistakes.

Facilitator and Presenter: Dame Stella Remington

Key issues identified:

• Teambuilding had been central to her work in intelligence
• It is a matter of praise and reward. The culture of communication is important, because people need to feel involved in the decisions that are being taken. Sharing in the success of others is also important. People need to be saying not “you did this” but “we did this”.
• Use strong and visible leadership to create a team that is always like a family. You can do this using female skills such as, warmth, inspiring confidence and exercising ruthlessness.
• You always need to know the competence and capacity of your opponents.
• Problems occur when you have very little information and what there is, is being interpreted the way people want it to be.
• “A blame culture comes from an insecure management. People who are not clear what they want to achieve”.
• Are great coaches born or can they be created? “I believe that leadership qualities are in the genes. There is something that makes people want to follow a leader”.
• When dealing with the press keep secret that which you wish to keep secret. The press can be extremely useful but be honest with them as the worst thing you can do is to try to mislead the press.

The following is a summary of key points observed by those attending on behalf of SINI who attended the various workshops over the 4 days.

To view the conference report please visit the web address below.

http://www.sini.co.uk/wcc05_report.pdf

SINI physiologist Declan Gamble recently attended a cycling workshop at Sport City Manchester. The event was organised by strength and conditioning coach Mark Simpson (English Institute of Sport, EIS) and was primarily aimed at providing an insight into the strength and conditioning demands of both sprint and endurance cycling. The workshop was delivered by a number of British Cycling Federation (BCF) National coaches and was supported by service providers from both the BCF and EIS. The presentations and practical demonstrations covered topics including; the physiological demands of track/road endurance, BMX, mountain biking, bike positioning, designing specific strength and conditioning programmes, prehabilitation and rehabilitation considerations and core strength and stability.

At the conclusion of the workshop the delegates were given an opportunity to attend the Cycling World Cup event, which was being held at the Manchester Veledrome, to experience first hand the demands of track racing. The competition programme included events such as the individual and team pursuits, time trials, sprints, keirin, points and scratch races, and the Madison. Attending the event presented and excellent opportunity to interact with support staff associated with the British cycling team. The support team included a lead sports science officer (physiology), a lead physiotherapist, a physiologist, performance analysts, and a nutritionist. Over the course of the weekend it became clear that this level of service was required to support a world class programme such as this.

On his return Declan said that, “in the future I hope that SINI can offer the appropriate level of support to athletes competing at international level and this is something that I believe we should be striving towards. Moreover, the importance of participation in these workshops cannot be underestimated, as they contribute to enhancing awareness and understanding of practical issues, and also facilitate networking and interaction with similar professionals who are providing services to high performance cyclists.”

Declan Gamble
SINI physiologist

At the turn of any year individuals in and out of the sporting realm forge mental resolutions to generate change in the next twelve months. Initiating such change often requires a period of honest reflection to clarify your ideas and form your vision for the year ahead. Actions taken to bring about the desired change need to be very specific targeted at factors which will have a critical influence on your chances of success.
Identification of these so called ‘critical success factors’ involves analysis and while there are a variety of methods deemed appropriate, many still use the widely documented SWOT process.

• In the year just passed what were your Strengths?
• In the year just passed what were your Weaknesses?
• What opportunities exist for next year to increase your chance of Success?
• What are the Threats that might limit your achievement next year?

Such a process frequently helps distillation of 6-8 ‘critical success factors’. For each it should then be possible to identify a SMART goal to ensure that progress is made in each critical area. The final planning stage is to identify the key actions required to help you achieve each goal.
Recognize also that it may not always be possible to achieve every goal in the timeframe you initially specify, but be persistent – as persistence is vital in breaking through barriers.

Do not fall into one of the three ‘traps’ listed below. These are top reasons preventing people from achieving their goals.

• Not believing it can be done – belief is essential to overcome hurdles that are bound to occur.
• Don’t think they have the solution – some individuals don’t see that they have the solution locked inside themselves….they need another person, an outsider to help them get the solution out.
• Not being ready – many people are aware that what they are doing is not what they really want to do. They recognize the need for change but at the moment they are just not ready to ‘pay the price’ and make the change happen.

So while you pause to contemplate the end of 2005…
generate your vision for 2006 –identify factors critical to your success –frame related goals and ACT to produce positive change.

‘Vision without action is a daydream – action without vision is a nightmare’

(Japanese proverb)

Peter McCabe
Performance Lifestyle Manager