1. Making Quality Consistency Happen

We do not have total control over results; but we do have total control over performance. Such control is only achievable given a base of quality consistency, not only in design, developing and delivery of the preparation process by athlete, coach and support team, but also through the competition program.

This presentation covers the principles and practice of ensuring that technical and behavioural quality/consistency is effectively exercised.

2. Applying Adaptation Theory to Achieving Performance Excellence

Our capacity to adapt to the challenge of stressors is central to the training process. On the one hand we now have greater understanding of the auto regulative mechanisms involved; on the other, we are more sophisticated in our management of stressor programming to leverage the advantage of such mechanisms to optimum effect.

This presentation reviews current adaptation theory and proposes application guidelines for strategy and practice in effective process management.

3. Learning Faster is our Competitive Advantage

“Probably the only sustainable competitive advantage we have, is the ability to learn faster than the opposition” (Arie De Geuss)

If we are to capitalize on this concept, we must understand current thinking on learning theory on the one hand and how to accelerate the learning process on the other. We must also understand the difference between technical learning and behavioural learning in changing how we prepare athletes and coaches for tomorrow’s changing arenas.

This presentation reviews and explores current thinking of learning theory and proposes an interdependent approach to accelerating the learning process.

4. The Winning Edge of Altitude Training

It is now well established that altitude training enhances the training process of all athletes, not only endurance specialists Nevertheless athletics coaches have not used this potential training advantage to the extent that might be expected. The main problems appear to be lack of knowledge of practical application across the athletics disciplines.

This presentation reviews current practice and sets out practical coaching advice and preparation strategies.

5. Practice for Pressure

The differentiator between even the most severe training and competition is the complex of intellectual, physical and emotional pressure. Preparing athletes to cope with this pressure and to turn it to performance advantage may variously involve coach, manager, psychologist, physiotherapist and/or other performance support personnel. Different athletes, different coaches, different situations may require different strategies and approaches.

This presentation reviews current thinking reference preparation for and coping with pressure from personal strategies for athletes through to management strategies for coaches.

6. Regeneration Strategy as an Essential in Maximizing Peak Performance Potential

We, as coaches, are in the main, far more knowledgeable about training stressors than we are of the other portion of the adaptation stimulus – regeneration or recovery. The fact is that it is in the regeneration/recovery phase that adaptation occurs. Coaches understand that athletes will only benefit from a training stressor if the body is prepared to respond positively to that stressor. Capacity to respond is directly proportional to effective regeneration/recovery from previous individual or cumulative stressors. Understanding how to persistently deliver effective regeneration/recovery, is, then, essential.

This presentation focuses on current understanding of regeneration/recovery process in continuing the immediate residual or cumulative effects of the wear and tear of stressors. It proposes specific strategies for addressing based ovoid or addisonoid over stress states at one extreme, while reviewing an extensive range of approaches to intellectual, emotional and physical regeneration and recovery.