11th December 2008
Welsh Hockey National Academy Week-End
Day 1
Danny Kerry, the successful GB Women's Head Coach, started the weekend off last Friday evening with a graphic insight into the highs and lows of the Beijing Olympic experience and the commitment needed from players to achieve that opportunity. As Sarah Thomas's coach throughout the build up and at the Games, Danny is well aware of the passion and commitment that is in Welsh sport. The twenty Welsh hockey national academy players and three national head coaches at the presentation tuned into the key messages: talent is not enough, choice not sacrifice, core skills, core conditioning, inner strength and the need for disciplined commitment to a performance programme on non hockey contact days. This set the tone for the rest of the week-end.
Day 2
The Academy weekend continued on Saturday with a Strength and Conditioning day led and coordinated by WHU Head S & C Coach Julian Owen. Ably assisted by Paul Betts and Paul Bradshaw from UWIC the athletes were tested, assessed, screened and trained in a wide range of physical attributes and competencies. The field testing battery encompassed sprints, repeated High Intensity Endurance runs and of course the much loved "Double Doggy" all of which were undertaken on the Artificial Turf at the Welsh Institute of Sport.
The afternoon session saw the athletes and S & C Staff move in to the relative warmth of the weights room for some new tests with weird names like "Side Plank" and "Prone Extension".
The whole day allowed the S & C Coaches to get a really clear picture of the current conditioning levels of the Academy athletes. Individualised training programmes will be sent to all tested one the results have been analysed and compared with previous data and benchmark figures provided by GB Coaches and Sports Scientists.
It is clear that the athletes finished the day with a renewed sense of the important position that the Academy now has in the WHU Player Development Pathway from the levels of staffing, planning, content and support in evidence on the Saturday and the weekend in general.
