JATI 2019 Presentation

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

Relationships in sport are universal

For Coaches

Know your area well, and importantly, know how your piece links within the bigger picture of the athlete, team and sport. Not everything revolves around S&C.

For Athletes

Whilst it may be all about you, knowing your coach/es as people can help you understand their perspective. Whilst a program should be as simple as it can, getting to the final product is complicated and a lot goes into the final product you don’t necessarily see.

In December of 2019 I was fortunate to be invited to speak at the Japanese Athletic Training Institute conference as a representative of the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association. I was able to share findings from my PhD and my application to training. Whilst I tried to be a part of the conference, it was difficult as it was all presented in Japanese. I had a great time during my presentation going line for line with my wonderful interpreter!

My presentation included the story underlying my PhD - what we know about strength underpinning athletic performance and the variables of resistance training to enhance specificity and transfer. I discussed the rationale for the study design, findings from the studies and how they have shaped my training prescription. (One of the studies is presented here in a wonderful infographic by Adam Virgile.) Whilst I very much enjoyed the presentation and the experience of travel, the hosts and the JATI conference, a key learning for me occurred during the final presentation of the weekend.

Infographic by @AdamVirgile

The final session was a presentation by an S&C coach working with national level swimmers and an S&C coach working in a collegiate setting. The college S&C coach had earlier approached me after my presentation and through the help of our interpreters, we had a fruitful discussion on single leg training. I had witnessed the swim S&C coach take a wonderful practical workshop on shoulders (an area that I have quite an interest in having previously worked with waterpolo and baseball). This final event involved both gentlemen doing a short, individual presentation before taking to stage together as a panel fielding questions from the audience. My wonderful interpreter effectively translating a running commentary keeping me up to date.

The session was great and the longer it went, the more I realised, whilst the language was different, the message was all too familiar: build relationships with your coaches and athletes. Like many S&C coaches, these gentlemen were sort of “middle men” - trying to improve the physicality of the athletes in their care, among demanding and sometimes crowded schedules that were not ideal, but very real. The perfect training week is rare for many (perhaps full time professional athletes), and certainly rare for athletes who work, study or have family commitments. There are blocks of time where “other” (if I may for this moment call family “other” - mine are not reading this anyway) can be put on the back-burner momentarily, but for the majority of the year, performance is a juggling act - a best fit approach. And a key to success is how a group of people with an array of commitments come together to achieve. In other words, relationships. Not reps or sets, or a new drill, recovery modality or exercise. But how to work with coaches and athletes to achieve what must be done in the slivers of time that exist between everything else. The conference was presented in a different language but the message was very similar.

I am grateful to the ASCA and JATI for the privilege of the invitation to the conference. It was a whirlwind four days between training sessions in Perth to fly to Tokyo to present, but certainly worth it and I would hope to go back another time.