From July 31 - August 13, 2012, the ETSU Olympic Training Site had a group of special guests from the Integration Sport professional tennis company from Taiwan. The group members were Jeff (CEO), Chris (tennis coach), Andy & Pitt (S&C coaches) and one player, Ian. Integration Sport has had superstars such as Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, and Marat Safin visit for exhibition games and events in Taiwan over the past two years.
The members of Integration Sport were zealous to learn new knowledge and help their athletes perform better. During their two-week visit, they went through a series of Sport Science lectures, including “Building a Coaching System,” “Planning and Monitoring,” and “Training Process”. Dr. Mike Stone, Dr. Meg Stone, and our PhD & Master’s students taught those lectures.
The following is an interview before they went back to Taiwan.
Question 1: What were your expectations before this trip?
Jeff
Before I came here, I thought this might be another trip for acquiring more S&C knowledge. In just two days at ETSU, I found I was totally wrong. Of course, we learned a lot of theoretical and hands on knowledge that was valuable, but the most important thing is that the ETSU Olympic Training Center broadened my horizon. How do we build our coaching system? How do we monitor our training and integrate sport science knowledge into our program? The answer for those questions needs a “big picture”, an overall concept, and this is even more important as a team manager, head coach, or CEO like me. This trip already gave me this “big picture”.
Chris
The only thing I knew before this trip was that one of our friends (Mark Chiang) is studying for his PhD at ETSU, and ETSU just became a USOC designed Olympic Training Center. However, I was impressed after just the first day at ETSU by those high quality facilities and brilliant people. I think the key for their success is their determination in pursuing sport science and coaches education. We are just nobodies, but they still did everything they could do to help and share with us. We are all very appreciative of this.
Andy:
As S&C coaches, we always need to be good models for our athletes. I practiced and prepared for the hands on weightlifting session after I was told we would take part in it. Surprisingly, coaches Tim & Christian taught us from a very lightweight (20KG bar) focusing on a perfect technique that was not easy to execute perfectly. All of a sudden, I realized that was the missing part of my learning.
Pitt:
Because I am studying for my Master’s degree, I know keeping an open mind is extremely important to learn new skills. I tried to make myself an empty cup before this trip, and yes, I learned far more than I expected in every aspect.
Ian:
I have never been to a country with such amazing training facilities and brilliant people. It was too bad that my English speaking ability is limited because I couldn’t communicate perfectly with professors here; however, I still felt their passion to sport science and coach education.
Question 2: What did you learn from these two weeks? And what will you do after getting back to Taiwan?
Jeff:
In the past two weeks, I can’t remember how many times I said “amazing”. One instance was when we went to UT to visit their giant stadium [Neyland Stadium] (it can fit over 100,000 people.) It is hard to find a word to describe how good that kind of atmosphere is for someone. The other day, Coach Stone showed us the ETSU athletic department, from strength & conditioning to sport medicine to social media, and every unit is so professional. Most important is the combination of the Center of Excellence, athletic department, and academic program (PhD & Master’s degrees). I strongly believe that is the reason why ETSU athletics can be so successful.
Following the first question, the number one priority when I get back to Taiwan is to build our own coaching system and spread this idea. What are the responsibilities for the head coach, the associate or assistant coaches? Things like that may be clear in the U.S., but they are still fuzzy in Taiwan. Secondly, I need to integrate more professionals to help us. My role model is Coach Stone (director of the Center of Excellence for Sport Science and Coaches Education); she uses her coaching background to integrate skills from the SPEG (Sport Performance Enhancement Group). This is not only what I will pursue, but is also what we need more of in Taiwan. I have invited the Center of Excellence staff to Taiwan next year; where we will hold the First Annual Sport Science and Coaches Education Conference in Taipei. We all are so excited to see coaches and scholars attend our conference and to learn from those intelligent people from ETSU.
Chris:
In the past two weeks, I experienced a whole new learning process. Professionalism is their attitude, but execution and hard work is their commitment to sport. This kind of spirit should be respected. The strong connection between sport coaches and sport scientists (S&C coaches) really impressed me; our team already started this model. We know as long as we follow the good model we see here, our athletes can perform at their highest ability.
Andy:
I think the most valuable knowledge I learned in the past two weeks is how to apply periodization training. To be honest, even when I passed the CSCS exam, periodization was still an ambiguous concept for me. However, after lectures from Howard (ETSU men’s soccer sport scientist) and Caleb (ETSU men’s tennis S&C coach), the periodization is not just a “concept” for me anymore. It’s a process which combines all the training principles into one concept! Because they provide a good model for us, our SPEG has already started our tennis periodization program (combining skills & conditioning.)
Pitt:
Because the prevalence of the health-fitness industry in Taiwan, many fitness instructors think they are strength & conditioning coaches and they train athletes with fitness techniques only (using a Swiss ball, kettle bell, or cycling, for example). Since there is a fine line of the two professions, it is sometimes hard for people to tell which is true, especially when they are not well educated in these areas. After two weeks of learning, I know how important each of the training principles are (especially variation) and how dangerous only using fitness training is to training athletes. There is now a huge distinction between the two in my mind. It is my responsibility to educate people who are interested in the S&C field on how to differentiate fitness and sport science (and strength and conditioning) when I get back to Taiwan.
Ian:
What impressed me the most was the part of Coach Stone’s lecture when she said, “be a student of your sport!” All the sudden I knew that is exactly what I need to do if my ultimate goal is to become a top professional tennis player. I will work as hard as I can to complete the coaches’ requests because I know the programs are designed with scientific precision and a lot of coaches’ effort. I hope I can visit here again in the near future when I am more fluent in English.
The Centre of Excellence for Sport Science and Coach Education would like to thank everyone from Integration Sport for visiting us. We learned from them also! PhD student Mark Chiang also deserves special credit for organizing this trip and for arranging this interview. For the original posting of this article, visit Mark Chiang's blog: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/performance-mark
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