Coaches Corner

Brendan Glynn is a sprints coach with both NUIG and Galway City Harriers. Here are his thoughts on his week last week. Think all coaches will relate to this. Originally posted here. They say programs are only written in pencil.. I say this myself but know I’m stealing it from some coach somewhere. I’m sure they’re talking about adapting to how athletes are progressing, how people are feeling, lifestyles, injury, illness etc. A big one for us here on our little Island is the weather! Given the nature of our sport, recovery is key and often to achieve the desired effect, quite a long recovery is needed compared to our longer distance cousins! This can lead to times when you have to make a decision - do the planned work you meticulously put into your program to have athletes ready and peaked for their major target and risk injury due to inclement conditions or change the sessions to suit your environment? I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here but it’s something that plagu

Phil Healy got the 2018 sprint and hurdle season off to a flyer with a IAAF World Indoor standard in Athlone last weekend. 53.15 is bang on the standard, is an outright PB (indoors and outdoors), is #2 on the Irish indoor All-Time list and #7 on the outright (indoor and outdoor) list. It's also just a start. Still justified in celebrating somewhat as we may not have too many other Irish athletes claim qualifying standards for Birmingham in March. As always, getting to this stage is complex with many ups and downs, tweaks, loops on thought process and trial and error. Coach Shane McCormack had organised a Cold Weather Training Camp in Curracloe back in November with a resilience session from a group of Irish Army Rangers in the Basecamp East group part of the weekend. After an exhausting day on the dunes and in the sea, the groups assembled in the nearby forest to get warm, light fires and cook fish. The fire lighting wasn't too successful but after several false starts the g

The dictionary definition of a hobby is 'an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation'. Many coaches in Ireland describe themselves as hobby coaches. In fact, probably all of the best coaches in Ireland are 'hobby' coaches.       James Hillier recently emmersed with the Club TLG coaches for a weekend in Dublin. In introductions, he heard the hobby coach reference more than once and wasn't happy. The hobby coaches were doing themselves a disservice, a massive disservice. A massive disservice to the athletes they work with too.       A hobby is flying model aircraft or constructing model trains in your attic. It's not facilitating and managing and coaching elite and aspirational elite athletes to be the best they can be in one of the most cut throat sports in the world. In June and July, in competition season, coaching athletics is far from an activity 'pursued for pleasure and relaxation'.      

Coaches Corner is kicking off an initiative for the 2017/18 season with the launch of Club TLG . Club TLG comprises of sprint and hurdle coaches and athletes. It has a simple goal of knowledge and experience sharing between all members of the Club. Some examples of this will be transparency regarding training programs, race day preparations, troubleshooting and peer to peer mentoring and collaboration. It is intended to have monthly meet ups throughout the season. Details of the planned winter meet ups are below:   ·      October – kick off weekend in Dublin. James Hillier from the UK will attend and the weekend will be very hands on and practical workshop focused. Hillier recently had three athletes competing at the World Championships in London. ·       November – weekend camp in midlands with a ‘military’ theme! ·       December – pre-indoor competition meet up, probably in AIT. There will be on-going sharing and communication through a central file an

I prepared the following presentation back in 2015 highlighting what I saw as a coaching deficit and the effects it would have on the performances of Irish athletes in Global Championships. Some caveats up front. I am not a world class coach. I am not an elite coach. I am not an expert in this area. I see myself as a development coach, a hobby coach. I see short comings in the coaching landscape from my perspective as a development coach and also from my time as an average athlete. This is my opinion and may not be correct, it's just an opinion. However, what I feared would happen in 2015 has materialised in both Rio '16 and London '17. Two athletes have achieved Top 16 finishes in those Championships - Robert Heffernan and Thomas Barr. Ten years ago in the 2007 World Championships we had 8 athletes who finished in a Top 16 place. Depending on what statistics you use, the 2017 Worlds is our worst championship in 12 years (2005) and 2nd worst in 26 years (1991).

Some very interesting splits from the women's 400m at last weeks Irish Nationals. The race was won by Cliodhna Manning in a storming finish. Her first 200 to second 200 split was an extraordinary 0.67 seconds. The other top four were in a more standard range of 2.5-2.8 secs. Also, in comparison was the athlete's first 200m versus their 200m PB. Manning was 2.59 outside her 200m PB at 200m. Denny (0.88) and Moynihan (1.07) were probably more typical while an under par Healy was slower through 200m than normal. Christine Ohuruogu, renowned for her storming finishes, had a 1.80 split when she won World's in 2013. TV footage would only allow analysis  of the top 4.