Open National Squad Training (ONST)

This weekend was open national squad training. This is the GB squad training that is open to anyone who is at a suitable level and there were about 130 on the mat. The format is quite simple, predominantly randori. There is a picture bellow of the programme and this is pretty standard.

Who we took 7 players although unfortunately not all of them could be there all weekend –  Michal Stewart, Glenn Miller, Matt Kavanagh, Natasha Collins, Tara Fitzjohn, Natasha Gregory-Waterhouse, Alex Hemming.

We also took a physiologist for the weekend – Vivian Merbach,  volunteered to help us out. She tested the players lactate at rest and then after each randori. The aim is for us to collect data over a period of time (not only lactate) and then develop a better profile physiological of competition and training judo. We current have data from our players, some students and some Croatian players.

The weekend was good, a great atmosphere and some very strong randori. I would highly recommend this for all dan grades who want to improve their competitive judo, I believe the next one is in June.

New Research Assistant at Anglia Ruskin

We now have a new research assistant at Anglia Ruskin, Natasha Collins, who will focus on performance analysis in judo.

Physiology during judo contest – Lactate testing and heart rate

Natasha was originally an undergraduate at Leeds metropolitan university and then transferred to Anglia Ruskin for her final year to train as a full-time judo player. Her undergraduate dissertation focussed on time motion analysis and kumi-kata in British judo and compared juniors to seniors. This has subsequently be edited for publication and is currently being peer reviewed.

She will support a variety of research topics including the coach-athlete relationship, LTAD and athlete monitoring but her main focus will be performance analysis in judo. This will support my PhD work and the work of Glenn Miller.

Natasha will also continue to work as the judo programme administrator and one of our AASE coaches.

Anglia Ruskin has a thriving judo research group that collaborates with academics around the world. We currently have around 10-15 members of staff focussing on judo research including performance analysis, physiology, coaching, the history of judo, child protection in judo and many other topics as well as three PhD students currently focussing on judo topics. The number of PhD students will hopefully increase this year.

Here are some of our research pics…

Physiological testing

Physiological testing

Physiological testing

Eye tracking

Eye tracking

Eye tracking

Physiological testing

Physiological testing

Physiological testing

Physiology – VO2 max

Physiology – VO2 max

Judo contest physiology

Physiology – VO2 max

If you would like more information on the judo research group or the judo programme at Anglia Ruskin University please visit http://www.anglia.ac.uk/judo or email judo@anglia.ac.uk.

England Talent Development Assessment days for AASE players

Anglia Ruskin University delivers the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) in collaboration with the British Judo Association and SGS college. There is more information on the AASE programme at Anglia Ruskin University here.

This weekend was an England Talent Development squad assessment weekend and all AASE players had to attend this as part of their course. The assessments are split into physical and technical. The physical tests include the multi stage fitness test, a press up test, vertical jump and the sit and reach test. The technical test involves athletes doing randori and being observed by the coaches. Their is mrs information on the tests here.

We currently have five AASE players who train daily with the universities full-time athletes. These players are:

• Holly Newton
• Natasha Gregory-Waterhouse
• Sam Richardson
• Ben Caldwell
• Dan Webb

Programme for IAJR conference

The programme for the IAJR conference has just arrived 🙂 Here is a screen shot 🙂

Pre BUCS preparation…

I said I would blog about our pre-training and I wanted to do it before BUCS because I feel reflecting upon the training once you know the result sometimes affects you opinion but I can only do what time allows.

I would say I am very experienced in short term preparation for specific competitions. When I competed for the army it was common to have a 2-3 week intense preparation period for a specific competition and since these competitive days I have coached the army and combined services in a similar scenario, often for the combined services championships or the national team championships.

This year was slightly different in terms of our BUCS preparation. Firstly I now work with a group of full-time athletes, the train around 20hrs per week so their level of preparation is very different. Secondly BUCS was brought forward by two weeks to the end of Feb, whilst this doesn’t sound like much students generally do not return to campus until the end of Jan so that only really left about 4 weeks to prepare for some students. Most of the full-time players did return earlier though in order to prepare for the British trials and some local players train with us regularly.

When I designed the original plan it was very much around the full-time players so there was around 6 weeks of training prior to BUCS and I figured if the kyu grades dipped in and out of the training as much as they could then this would be more training than most kyu grades.

Inevitably things change though and the number of injuries meant I had to include the kyu grades more and more. To be honest I am surprised how much the managed.

Here is the overview of the training:

 

To be honest there is no real secret, for me it is about mat time and volume of randori. I get as many dojo sessions as possible and just increase the volume of randori each each microcycle. I use both 7 day and 14 day microcycles in order to achieve volume, intensity and rest. The preparation ended in an overload week – the aim was for athletes to achieve 60-72 randori’s in the week. The most we did in one session was 13 x 5mins, I nearly always use 2 minute rest periods for hard randori, this is something I have experimented with a lot and I find after about 90 sec players are ready to go again and facing their partner, this leave 30 sec with them thinking ‘come on, i’m ready’ and this means they seem to always feel like they can do more.

Here is an example of a microcycle:

I am fortunate enough to now be surrounded by some coaches and athletes who can challenge my thinking and during the overload week I was challenged by a few coaches who thought we were doing too much and people were too tired. I like to be challenged like this, it forces me to really reflect, a very deep and questioning reflection. I decided to persist, I expected more players to be struggling than were and although there was some emotion it just felt right to me. I have already thought about how I will change things for next year based on a conversation with Yasuke Hayashi (a Japanese judoka visiting us).

Anyway, this post is getting far too long! Next post i’ll talk about the competition itself 🙂

45 sec rule….

Just a quick post, following on from my last one really. Whilst teaching undergrad sports students to teach in schools I made a rule – you can only talk for 45 seconds at a time!

We timed people talking/demonstrating and observed the children to see when the lost interest, 45sec was about the max time. Last week when I spoke to my coaches about the session I mentioned this, the idea is the children spend more time doing and less time pretending to listen!

 

I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

Even more BUCS photos – Podium shots

Here are some of the podium shots from BUCS, we won three golds and two bronze in the individual making us the top of the medal table and then the mens team championships. Medals went to:

Mike Stewart Gold U66kg

Adrian Markov Gold U81kg

Andre Cojuhari Gold O100kg

Johnny Morris Bronze U81kg

Janaina Magalhaes Bronze U63kg

Some Photos from BUCS

 

There’s more to come, we have lots of video too.

BUCS 2012

For me, the best judo competition of the year is the British University and Colleges Sports Championships or BUCS. You have around 25 sports competing over the week and once accredited you can go and watch whatever you want. The judo is fought on the Saturday and Sunday, individuals on the Saturday and teams on the Sunday.

One of the great things about BUCS is the variety in players, universities generally have a three year cycle so the players you see each year are always changing plus there is a lot more foreign players and every year at least one university turns up with someone special.

Last year Anglia Ruskin won the mens team event and got a gold and a silver in the individuals. of course I would love to win the mens team event again, we’ll see. For me the journey there is more interesting, last year we had to borrow white or blue belt off our opponent – how embarrassing going into the final of the team championships and having to ask your opposition (Loughborough) for belts! If nothing else we’re much better kitted out this year thanks to last years win, all players fighting in the team have two superstars fighting films kits with the uni logo embroider on it plus we have t-shirts etc

Our training has been very different too, last year we had a 2-3 week “beat up” where we intensified the training. This year we have been at a slightly lower intensity for about 8 weeks with a lot of competitions. The players have been very motivated and have bonded well. We have used video pretty affectively again.

Last year we had the British number one in the -73kg Danny Williams, he won every fight but we do not have him this year, he is in Japan preparing for London. We’ll see what affect this has.

Another development this year is that we have some women players, this is great and I am really hoping they do well.

We are at a new venue this year – Don Valley stadium. I really hope this venue is good, last year we were on the running track at the EIS and it was great. I just hope they haven’t ruined this great event by moving it somewhere poor.

So I guess we just have to wait and see, about 40 hours to the weigh in and the battle commences Saturday morning. I have looked at the teams and there are 10 on my ‘serious’ list and 4 of them go on my ‘seriously dangerous list’. Can we do better than last year? I’ll let you know 😉

I have just realised……

I have just realised I haven’t posted about the national teams. It was an interesting weekend really.

I met up with the combined services team on the Saturday morning as I arrived late at the hotel. We went to weigh in with no problem and the team fought pretty well. They ended up with a bronze medal. The semi final went 2-2 and with Lewis Keeble as our final fighter we were pretty confident but it wasn’t to be. Lewis threw his Scottish opponent and scored but landed in an arm lock and his opponent was quick to slap it on.

Unfortunately by this time one of our players, Johnny Morris, was suffering and we replaced him with the reserve. I think it is unfair to say the team was weaker though, as I looked at that team that faced Scotland 4/5 had fought in a world championships and the other was u23 European Bronze medallist. Not a bad team for a national team championships.

I also had Natasha Collins fighting in the u52 category for the eastern area women’s team. It is very interesting to see how the teams contrast in term of the management yet both teams secured bronze. Natasha’s first fight was a bye, the second fight she won by ippon and the third fight went 4 mins before she lost to a second wazari, to be fair she was fighting the European u20 bronze medallist. She was happy with this fight though, in fact she was happier with this one than the one she won. I think it show a maturity that she is looking at the quality of the fight rather than the outcome.

The national teams this year didn’t have the atmosphere as previous years, I am not sure why this was, maybe it was just me.

On Sunday I have seven youngsters fighting in a local age banded, they did pretty well, we got three golds, a silver and a bronze. Two things about this competition made me really happy. The first is that the two older boys were given specific things to work on, to the point where if they went into newaza and were pinning their opponent they would let them up. They both worked hard to develop their new techniques and both secured gold.

The really great thing about this weekend was one of out new players Rosie, she also won gold but this is insignificant in relation to how confident and cheerful she was through the day. At Comberton JC we have a blog that the children write on competition day to keep them entertained, improve their writing and encourage reflection. You can read what Rosie wrote here: http://combertonjudoclub.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/littleport-age-banded-by-rosie-aged-9/

It is interesting working with such a variety of players day in day out. On Sat I was with a team of full-time judo players and on Sunday I was with a group of predominantly red belts. Most weeks I coach a huge range of players like this which is interesting but has its challenges.