Taiwanese Delegates from Integration Sport Visits Center of Excellence

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

 

 

Internship Series: Brad Anderson

I began working with Daniel Boone High School (DBHS) Softball in mid-December. Coach Rick Wagner contacted the Center of Excellence for Coach and Sport Science to see if we had anyone that could train his softball team. It just so happened that I was looking for an internship in a local high school.

                      

Little did I know that the DBHS Softball team was returning six seniors, five had already signed to play in college, and the team was picked to return to the state tournament. The coaches told me that the ladies were very good and had high expectations. As a strength coach, this made me slightly apprehensive. Many of us know that weight room gains do not necessarily translate immediately to on field performance. I knew that the girls were going to get more powerful and stronger, but I didn’t want the work done in the weight room viewed as the linchpin to a great season. I quickly realized that these ladies could definitely play the game and the benefits from the weight room would help.                         

I had worked at a couple of NCAA Division I programs as an assistant S&C [strength and conditioning] coach, but at DBHS I was stepping into a head job that I had never held in strength and conditioning. I really saw this as an opportunity to prove myself. The greatest challenge was that I had not worked with a female team in the past. I had some misconceptions that were quickly vanquished. The ladies learned fast and worked just as hard, if not harder, than any Division I athlete I had worked with.

Eleven weeks passed from the time I began training the ladies to the start of the season. This posed a challenge to balance weight training and conditioning. In this situation I believed that power/strength gains would carry over more to performance in softball than conditioning. We did condition but not to the level that I would have liked to if I would have had more time before the season. After eleven weeks, the ladies increased their 1 RM’s in power clean by an average of 15%, in push jerk by an average of 27%, and back squat by an average of 31%.

I spoke earlier about the translation of gains to the playing field. Once the ladies began taking batting practice we started to see that improvements were coming on the field.  I was not the only one to notice a difference but the coaches as well mentioned how much harder the ladies were hitting the ball. In the first week of hitting off of live pitching, the team hit six homeruns in 3 days. This was against the team’s pitching staff, which is considered the best in the area.

Looking at the season schedule, there were only two days a week we could lift. There is a very fine balance between fatigue and fitness in softball because the team can play up to 17 games in a week, play seven games in a weekend and play four games in a day. The workouts were a constant balancing act based on how many games and innings were played in the previous days and the strength of the opponents in the coming days.  Even with these challenges, all of the ladies I have had a chance to test post-season matched testing numbers from preseason.

The season proved to have the outcome that so many had predicted. The team won the Big 8 Conference, the Division I tournament, Region I title, and Sectional title. At one point the team won 27 games in a row and finished the season 50-6. The team played all the way back through the state losers’ bracket to force a second championship game only to fall in that very game. The team set the Tennessee state record for most homeruns in a season (50), the most homeruns hit in a state tournament (7), and finished the season ranked 47 in the ESPN Powerade Fab 50 national rankings. Many of their stats ranked within the top 5 nationally all time.



As a strength and conditioning coach, this internship was perfect. I had a coaching staff that completely supported me and had athletes that completely bought into my program. The coach spent over $1,000 to buy brand new women’s Olympic weight lifting bars and a switch mat. I was allowed to travel to all of the games and I was in the dugout for each game. I was given the opportunity to design a stretching and dynamic warm-up plan prior to each game. Overall, I was treated as another coach on the staff, just like an assistant or pitching coach. The ability to do my job and not be questioned or challenged at every turn by a sport coach was everything I could ask for. The support from the coaches, players, and parents was amazing. The parents need to be highlighted above all else because they are the ones bringing the ladies to the weight room day after day and supported their daughters in what I was promoting in my program.

Special thanks to DBHS AD Danny Good, athletic trainer Craig Moorehouse, Rick Wagner, Bill Wagner, Anna Johnson, 2012 DBHS Softball team, and again all the parents for the support to make this endeavor work.

For more information, read Douglas Fritz’s article from the March 31, 2012 edition of the Johnson City Press. http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/article.php?id=99360

Volleyball and Golf Testing

ETSU volleyball and golf testing.



Volleyball pics

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Golf (just a few pics)

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Baseball Testing

ETSU men's baseball testing.

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Thrower Testing

Some early morning iso pull testing with the ETSU throwers.

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