As we enter 2004 it is useful reflecting on the development of SINI during 2003. What pleased me most was how many of our athletes adapted to the high performance environment and the commitment they showed to training and to improving their performance. Yes, there were exceptions, but that will always be the case when athletes are trying to balance their sport with study, job, family life etc. Hopefully the time they spent with SINI will have helped them raise the bar in whichever sport they are performing. The delivery of services in an integrated manner has continued to improve due to the work of the high performance managers within our key sports. They play a pivotal role in coordinating the services for the athletes. In turn the performance managers all feel very satisfied at the quality of the services being provided and while integration requires continual monitoring I do believe we are progressing along the right lines. One of the most used services at SINI is the physiotherapy. Under the direction of Phil Glasgow athletes are increasingly being made aware of the need to be proactive in monitoring their response to training loads so that minor strains and muscle stiffness do not develop into chronic injuries. Some of this years Gaelic Football squad entered the Institute with long term injuries and through regular physio sessions and carefully managed gym work (again often done under Phil Glasgow’s direction) they are all well on the road to recovery and will start playing in the next few weeks. Coaches play a key role in the creation of this High Performance environment. Knowledgeable coaches who know the benefits to be gained from the various services and how to integrate them into their athlete programmes are on the increase. Attendance at World Class Conferences, and workshops help increase this knowledge and ensure levels within each sport are lifted. 2004 is Olympic year. I anticipate that between 4 and 7 athletes from different sports who are using SINI facilities and services will be going to Athens. The preparation done now and over the winter will ensure that these athletes make the best of their Olympic opportunity. I would like to start 2004 by wishing athletes every success and hope that through good planning and preparation success will be achieved. Ronnie Smyth “Only through maximum effort will you get maximum results” – Bill Sweetenham (Performance Director, British Swimming)
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Ireland
are currently attending a training camp at Stanford University,
California and will play 2 exhibition and 3 full Internationals
against the United States of America. Like Ireland, the U.S.A.
team will travel to Auckland, New Zealand, for the Olympic Qualifying
tournament 19-28 March 2004. |
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All our top local athletes will be competing at the venue, including Paul Mc Kee and Paul Brizzel who hope to use the event as a stepping stone to success at the World Indoor Championships in Budapest on the 5th March 2004. Also briefly escaping form the muck of cross country will be Dermot Donnelly who will hope to use this as a stepping stone to the World Cross Country Championships in Brussels on the 20th March 2004. Joining him in the 3000m at the Odyssey will be reigning champion Gary Murray, who like Dermot hopes to retain his place on the Irish World Cross Country team. Also competing in the 3000m will be Northern Ireland’s Andy Graffin who hopes to make the British Team for the Brussels event. All three athletes had good starts to 2004 at the Belfast International Cross Country at Stormont. James McIlroy who uses the SINI facilities when home in Northern Ireland, will unusually be running the 1500m at the Odyssey, and hopes to run a qualifying time for the World Indoors at this event. The Northern Irish Record Holder and British Number One hopes to use these races to build up an endurance base before returning to his main distance, 800m, for the Athens Olympics. Like last year the championships are open, and this will mean an influx of foreign stars. Last year saw the battle of Darren Campbell and Mark Lewis Francis over 60m as well as some spectacular performers in the field events. Local athletes love the opportunity to compete alongside the top athletes in the World on home soil, as well as using the fantastic facilities, which are unrivalled in Ireland.
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The performance of the Ulster XV on 11th January 2004 will go down in history as one of the greatest displays by an Ulster team at Ravenhill. The ‘Tigers’ from Leicester arrived under microscopic media pressure and left shell – shocked without even the ‘meowing’ whimper of a pussycat.
In December these ‘aspiring professionals’ went through a series of physiological testing. This was followed by individual appraisals in the first week of January, based on a balance of objective tests and subjective assessment of, Ø Attitude
Ø You
are on the right track In
simple language, selection and retention in the elite programme
continues or not. For those who fall into the latter category the ‘door’ is
still open – with an improvement in the three ‘A’s’ of
attitude, aptitude and application coupled with progressive club
performances they will be invited back into the elite structure
for a probationary period in the first instance.
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GAELIC - THE WAY FORWARD The Sports Institute players are making progress with a number now integrating successfully into the Senior County Sides for the McKenna Cup campaign. Paul Doherty has had two successful starts with Antrim and Patsy Bradley and Conleth Moran have both made their senior debut with Derry. Dermot Carlin has just returned from Dubai with the Tyrone Senior Team and is back in training and will compete for UUJ in the McKenna Cup. In a similar manner Finnian Moriarity (Armagh) and Kieran McCrory (Tyrone) made their senior debuts with UUJ in the McKenna cup against Antrim. The McKenna Cup campaign continues with the senior managers taking the opportunity to try out new talented players. However the same problems remain with many of our talented young players being expected to train with their County sides at this time of the year as Sigerson competition looms. Would it not be good practice to take a look at our competitive season and start to structure what goes on in a more coherent and efficient manner? The last two weeks County U21 training and trials have started and players are split between Colleges and County some opting to play for their County instead of their College. Young players need to be given a chance to play at the College level as part of their development. Time for a radical rethink regarding training and competition. Some ideas!!! Could the McKenna Cup be played October and November and change it to under an under 23 competition? This would allow potentially more young players to get an opportunity to play at County level and build a bridge between minor and senior? Radically review the U21 competition it seems to run all year with trials before Christmas for a competition that doesn't start for months. Rethink the Sigerson competition - the fun has gone out of it! It starts in the middle of the examination period for students so its impossible to train up to the first match. Look at how Colleges recruit their players to ensure that recruitment is not just for football (the American way)! |
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The Goal-Keeping CD features Paul Callaghan and John Somers demonstrating the latest drills for warm-ups and sharpness, with extensive footage on diving and kick-out technique and innovative ways to incorporate these into goalie specific training. They also offer advice on injury prevention and appropriate clothing and gloves in a series of short clips which can be easily accessed through a menu system. The ‘ABC
to SAM’ CD is a model performance library allowing coaches
to view examples of the best players in Ulster carrying out various
skills from the simple to complex. The many skills of Gaelic Football
are presented on screen accompanied by a summary of the key teaching
points allowing both players and coaches to become more skilled
in evaluating their own or their players performance by providing
an effective point of reference.
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PERFORMANCE LIFESTYLE – EFFICIENT TIME MANAGEMENT IN 2004 As we enter the New Year everyone has a variety of tasks to perform and objectives to achieve. It is necessary to focus on what is important in the face of demands on your time. The following method is recommended to help you prioritize actions and manage your time more efficiently. The starting point for getting organised is to identify your objectives for the next phase.
Start
by writing down all matters that you feel need to be done.
Sort the list according to status. The ‘Traffic Light’ metaphor is used but it has been adapted to suit the coloured highlighter pens that many individuals use. This allows actions to be labelled with a coloured dot. Individuals who do not use highlighters can simply label each action with its allocated status. If
the action is straightforward and you have all the information
that you need to carry it out – allocate GREEN STATUS.
Use
ABC analysis to assign the priority of each action.
Test
again all C rated actions to make sure they are relevant – if
not remove them.
Concentrate
on A priority actions first. Once no further progress can be made with A priority actions on that day start working on B priority actions. Once again estimate time required and try working on GREEN STATUS actions first. Only work on C priority actions when you can make no further progress with A and B priority actions or when the urgency of a C rated action increases requiring it to be re-rated.
Daily examine your to-do list. Extract the subset of actions to complete that day. On at least a weekly basis reassess actions and award status and priority.
It
is often useful to design a template to help you structure your
to-do list. Remember, being successful doesn’t make you manage your time well…but managing your time well can make you more successful.
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FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL CONFERENCE JAN 2004 Strength
and Conditioning Head Coach Phil Moreland reports from his recent
trip to the United States It is interesting to see that even thought the presentations were specific to the above-mentioned sports I have come back with a lot new ideas that are very applicable to our sports at the institute. As one of the presenters stated at the end of the day speed is speed and strength is strength and conditioning is conditioning. So the principals and the concepts presented can be very easily carried over to other sports. From the baseball side of the conference one interesting area was how shoulder stability is now being explained and trained in baseball pitching. The ideas presented here have direct carry over to shoulder stability in all of our institute sports. With football being such a hi impact combat sport many of the ideas presented will have application to the SINI rugby and galiec football programs and to our combat athletes such as Judo players and alike. Coming back from something like this you are full of new ideas but it is also heartening to see that we have been implementing many of the so call 'new ideas' presented at this conference for some time now. In
all the conference was a great opportunity to see what our friends
across the Atlantic are up to. The conference materials are available
for any one to look at in the strength and conditioning office. |
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ANDORRAN ADENTURE WITH VOLLEYBALL SQUAD Joanne Hanna has been working part time at the Sports Institute giving massage to athletes two days per week. She was asked by the Northern Ireland Volleyball team to travel with them to Andorra for a European Cup qualifier. This is a brief account of her trip. “As physiotherapist for the Northern Ireland volleyball team on their most recent away trip, responsibility for all general first aid and physiotherapy treatment lay with me. Therefore all first aid supplies, kitbag and portable plinth had to be organised, before the trip. The flight to Andorra left Dublin at 7am, so on Boxing Day morning at 3am, I was collected by three of the players, not looking or feeling too hot (well it was Christmas the day before!!). Travelling by car, plane and then by bus took up most of the day and I gradually was introduced and got to know management, coaches and players I had never met before. We arrived early evening to our hotel, with a short time to settle in our room before the boy’s first training session. Before the trip, I had been involved in the screening of many of the players and therefore was aware of players’ weaknesses, previous and recent injuries. Players who were carrying injuries were taped for mild to moderate ankle sprains, staved fingers and thumbs, jumpers knee (patella tendonitis) and medical ligament strains of the knee. A similar taping routine occurred before every training and match in the coming days. After training back at the hotel, players were allocated physio times for initial or reassessment and treatment. One of the most common injuries carried by the players was a mild ankle sprain. Treatment generally involved deep transverse friction, strengthening and propioceptive exercises and advice. Other injuries to be treated on daily basis were shin splints, hamstring strains, ligament and meniscal injuries of the knee and stiff lower backs. Each day I attended training session in the morning, carried out treatment back at the hotel for 2-3 hours, then attended matches later in the day, followed by more massage and treatment in the evening. Especially during cool downs a lot of time was given to assessing and re-advising players on effective stretching techniques. In the warm up session before the first match against Cyprus, Tom Napier a player already carrying a medical ligament strain of the knee caused further injury landing from a jump. Taping around the knee was removed and a quick assessment was carried out but was limited by pain. Swelling to the inside and front of the knee was observed so basic first aid principles were initiated, RICE, and he was pulled out of the game. Following the game a full assessment of Tom’s knee was carried out, both medial ligament and McMurray tests were positive suggesting that fibres of medial meniscus. Over the following days treatment involved a lot of VMO (vastus medialis oblique) rehab, functional and very light resistive leg work, as pain and swelling reduced. Tom eventually was allowed to play in the last match of the tournament against my advice, but with loads of supportive taping. The only other form of courtside first aid carried out was for a small flesh wound for Alan Workman after he smacked himself into the courtside displays going for a ball. The most important thing to be aware of, even with the smallest of flesh wounds is who comes into contact with the blood and how dressing and cleaning materials are disposed of. Sports massage played a large part in many treatment sessions for stiff backs, necks and shoulders. Especially after the final match against the Rep of Ireland, when I spent over an hour on Alan Knipe’s lower back, while the rest of the players had already started (shall we say) relaxing after their last game. Overall it was a very full and busy weekend, I feel I worked well with both players and coach and I hope I was a benefit to the team!!!” Joanne leaves the Institute on January 18th to spent a year travelling around Australia with some friends. We thank her for all her support and wish her well. |
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REFLECTIONS FROM A PLACEMENT AT SINI Katey Halliday is a student at Methodist College in Belfast and is currently studying A levels in chemistry, geography and home economics. She is a keen hockey player and plays for both Belfast Harlequins and the school 1st X1 She is also interested in basketball and last year played on the Ulster U16 team. Katey has a particular interest in sports dietetics and would hopefully like to continue her studies at either Trinity College, Dublin or university in Austrailia. This is a brief report of her one week work placement of SINI. This week I have been lucky enough
to spend 4 days with the Sports Institute of N.Ireland. The Institute
is based at the University of Ulster in Jordanstown and is a partnership
between the Sports Council for N.Ireland and the University of
Ulster. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the institute and would recommend work-shadowing here to anyone who has an interest in sports and would like to pursue a career in this area. Thank
you to all the staff at the Institute. |
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RUGBY HOCKEY GAA ATHLETICS |
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