English Institute of Sport

I finished up on Friday with a presentation on the 3S System – Sport Specific Speed to the English Institute of Sport group at Loughborough University. Before that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was the English Institute of Sport at Bisham Abbey. Both are beautiful places. Loughborough is one of the most famous physical education schools in the world. I felt honored to be presenting there. Bisham Abbey is right on the river Thames, outside of London. This is obviously a rowing center due to the proximity to the Thames. Monday afternoon after I flew in I got to visit with Dave Reddin, Head Strength & Conditioning coach with British rugby and Calvin Morriss, his assistant. Always great to get together with this guys, they are real forward thinkers. Currently working on some player profiling that should prove very interesting. In their role they are not with the players on a daily basis, only when the National Squad is assembled. This presents some unique challenges that they are working hard to overcome. In addition having won the last world Cup they are fighting a culture of complacency. Later Monday afternoon with Calvin I was honored to meet Steve Backley. Steve is a former javelin thrower, the best ever from Great Britain. He is a many time Olympian and a place winner in several World Championships. He is retired from competition now. I was pleased to find out that in the early Nineties he had used some of my ideas on shoulder rehab to get back to throwing. Had a great visit talking about sport today and bit about training.

On Tuesday Kelvin Giles, who is the Elite Player Development Strength and Conditioning Coordinator for Australian Rugby Union presented all day on Physical Competencies and their assessment. It was great to finally meet Kelvin. It was a very outstanding presentation that clarified many of the issues that I have had with “functional Screening.” I will post more on this later in the week. All in all it was a great week. I will share more of my thoughts when I get settled in back home.