Professional thought (section 1)

This post will chronicle my story, how I got to be and where I want to go...

Having been fascinated by the game of football from a young age, my intentions were to join a football club, however when I finally joined a club at the age of thirteen I had missed the window of opportunity for co-ordination, agility and speed. With a lot of hard work, my level of play improved but not enough to achieve a competitive level. I then made the tough decision to stop football and joined an athletics club at the age of 17. Joining an athletics club was one of the steepest learning curves in my career as an athlete. Track and field training is more specific, detailed, tailored and tougher than football. Athletics also gave me the opportunity to run for my University, St Mary's University, at the BUCS competition at the 2012 Olympics athletics test event with 20k plus spectators.

I moved to London at the age of 21 to read for my BSc Sports Science degree and graduated in 2014. With St Mary's University being an official Olympic training camp at the time, it was an amazing experience and good learning opportunity especially considering that my country of origin (Malta) is not top level for professional sports. During my time in London, I also collected various sport badges such as Football Coaching Level 1 & UK Athletics Level 2 Sprint Coach. After successfully graduating, I moved back to Malta with the sole aim of improving the entire sports level of my home country. Strength and Conditioning was the ideal avenue to achieve this goal as it was relatively unheard of, with the possibility of impacting several sports disciplines.

"With Sailcoach organisation I have reached the highest level of sport yet, being responsible for the athletic preparation of five sailors to qualify and subsequently compete in the Rio Olympic Games of 2016 in Brazil"

From the teaching and experience I gained in London, I started assisting footballers, swimmers and athletics in Malta to improve their performances with successful results. This is when I was spotted and introduced to Sailcoach. With Sailcoach organisation I reached the highest level of sport yet, being responsible for the athletic preparation of five sailors to qualify and subsequently compete in the Rio Olympic Games of 2016 in Brazil. Assisting sailors to qualify for the games has taught me so much about the process to make it at such high level and being present at the games as athlete support was of invaluable experience.

Always striving to achieve more, I started reading for a Masters course in Science of Strength and Conditioning again at St Mary's University. This course is definitely adding structure to my work, changing the way I worked in the past and is pushing the standards of what I offer to higher heights. My ultimate goal now is to aid Maltese National athletes to qualify to the Olympics (Tokyo 2020) without the need to use a Wild Card to participate.

Currently working with swimmers, runners and footballers most of the time. The way I see my role for an athlete's improvement is by first assessing the sport they practice and identifying points in which the athlete is not being efficient. I then further focus on specific technique such as the kicking in breaststroke for swimmers and change of direction COM placement for footballers. From this I then analyse why such a lack of efficiency is occurring.This can be for various reasons such as imbalances, lack of strength, lack of range of motion or simply never been thought the right motor pattern sequence. After this analysis in which I would have established the weaknesses and strengths of the athlete, a further needs analysis would be carried out to determine what is required to match competition level. After this a yearly plan will be agreed on with various cycles of progression. The smallest cycles are of six weeks with larger cycles of three months. Obviously the plan is always tweaked and adjusted according to the body and performances responses by the athlete.

Most of the specific work chosen follows the dynamic correspondence theory of Verkhoshansky and Siff. Their work has improved my exercise selection to be more efficient and deliver better results. Also two individuals that have influenced my work are Dan Baker and Dan John. Having met them at a University on-site session their teachings have instilled great changes to my work from velocity based training to being more practical in individual sessions respectively.

To conclude I would like to point out that when it comes to coaching there is no right or bad way..... I believe that or your way works or it does not work. There are ample scientific journals published weekly which a coach should keep up to date with for the latest evidence based practice. However what it comes down to is when and how a coach applies the findings according to the current situation of his current athlete. Keeping always in mind that what worked in the past does not necessarily work again and what worked with one athlete does not mean it will work for another. Such a mindset will allow flexibility which is key in the art of coaching.

#strengthandconditioning #malta #tokyo2020