FASANOC hosts clinic
PUTTING into action what we learn is one of the most important lessons that I have learnt, says national tennis rep and coach, Vienna Kumar, during the week-long Oceania Sports and Education Program (OSEP) strength and conditioning course held in the Western Division from April 6-10, 2021.
“One of the topics that stood out for me during this course was periodisation, which was something we as coaches or even players lack knowledge on,” she said.
“Learning to plan training times and phases accordingly and understanding the load of training needed in each phase is really important and beneficial to athletes and coaches.”
Vienna said in her five years of playing for the national team, she had never encountered a coach that put in place a plan for training leading up to any competition.
“I would like to start implementing this for my personal training and work with my federation to start periodisation plans for every major tournament,” she said.
Vienna said as an athlete and coach she would ensure that her federation would benefit from what she had learned from the week-long course and hopefully their athletes would show better results in future competitions.
Fellow participant and school teacher, Inoke Vucago said school teachers should be collectively engaged in the OSEP courses so that the development of athletes from a young age at primary school to secondary school level was aligned.
“The primary school and secondary school teacher’s involvement will build bridges and will be enablers for an effective Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) structure for players through primary and secondary schools, producing world-class players between ages 19-23 years.”
Inoke said he was interested in taking up the course to know more about its effectiveness and its impact to his sport of choice which was rugby.
“Being a part of the course enabled me to gain as much knowledge as I can on planning, preparation and training of a player, so that he or she may enhance themselves to achieve maximum potential at their competition,” he said.
Inoke was hopeful that the course would also holistically benefit Nadi Rugby Union because it would help the coaches identify talent and develop players to achieve their full potential.
Inoke said he had attended a similar course in a Level 1 Strength and Conditioning for rugby.
“This OSEP Community Strength and Conditioning course was a much bigger difference from what was covered in rugby Level 1 because it was more detailed into talent identification and development”.
“It also focused on the planning, preparation, executing and evaluation of specific training programs for individual players, mini units and as a team for maximum performance,” he said.
Inoke said he hoped to be setting a more detailed and effective training programs for his individual players and to monitor their programs and progress.
Participant, assistant coach of the Yasawa women’s rugby team and physical pducation teacher, Oripa Lee, also said the course was informative, helpful and resourceful.
Oripa, a participant representing rugby, said the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) part of the course was something she was very impressed with.
“After this course, I felt that I was responsible for cutting short the talents and spoiling the future of some players who went through me in terms of dictating to them the position to play and training them solely on that particular role,” she said.
“Also for being too structured, training the young athletes the wrong way, whereby they continue with what they are taught.”
She said in the past doing warm-up and cool down activities back to front and coaching the traditional way without knowing the purpose of the exercises was embarrassing for her now.
Having the strength and conditioning knowledge and implementing the knowledge in the correct way is an invaluable tool to have as a coach.
Oripa said she strongly felt that the course should be taken up by primary school teachers because they dealt with athletes from a young age.
“Imagine teaching a 6-year-old the right way and by the time they reach high school, high school teachers will find it much easier to develop the athlete because they have been taught the right techniques and basics from their primary school years,” she said.
“That is development in its original form.”
She said most physical education teachers coached and trained athletes the same way as they were trained more than a decade ago, not knowing that they could be doing more harm than benefit to the young athletes.
“After this course, I hope to help my colleagues in my school by continuing to spread this beautiful gospel for the bright future and development of our athletes,” Oripa said.
Oripa said she had attended the same course two years ago and was surprised by the change that had occurred.
“The introduction of periodisation planning, anatomical adaptation exercises, diet recommendations and fitness test batteries is so detailed and allows us coaches to improve, strengthen and condition our athletes better than before,” she said.
OSEP facilitator Talemo Waqa said strength and conditioning was an area most national federations did not feel was important because they lacked knowledge in this area.
“Other countries see its importance and not us,” he said.
“Our lack of knowledge is one of the reasons we are lagging behind and they are moving on and this is just one area we still need to strengthen before other areas.”
Talemo said we had the necessary trained personnel to deal with strength and conditioning and are capable of doing the job required. He also recommended that more coaching, administration, strength and conditioning courses to be held in the Western Division.
OSEP master educator trainee,
Kolinio Sewabu said part of his role was to assess the educator trainees present”to ensure they delivered to the standard expected of them through their content knowledge, delivery methods and achieving course outcomes, so participants maximise their learnings and improve their knowledge on the importance of understanding training principles and how this relates to training athletes in their national federations.
Kolinio said body strength and conditioning improves endurance, increases flexibility and establishes a balanced, stable physique.
“The valuable knowledge and exercises learnt from this course offers a wealth of positive benefits to overall health and fitness of athletes across all sports and allows athletes to prepare themselves to the demands of the game or sport they’re involved in.
“So this course is absolutely necessary for any coach to go through.
“I will encourage all national federations to have their coaches certified so that they teach the correct techniques from a younger age, acknowledging age-grade training and long-term athlete development (LTAD).
“Fiji will be a far better performing country in sports in years to come if this is enhanced and supported at grassroots level,” he said.
OSEP master educator Tihrani
Uluinakauvadra said participants (coaches) should be able to change some of their traditional training approach to a more functional approach.
“Strength and conditioning coaches play a vital role in the performance of athletes,” he said.
“An athlete can only meet the demands of his or her sport if the body co-ordinates and moves functionally and this is what is learnt during the course.”
Tihrani said strength and conditioning was an area that was lacking in all sports despite a few local experts currently focused on their own sports.
“It is also important that we have more continuous professional development for potential educators and master educators in strength and conditioning especially for those from other sports,” he said.
“There are grey areas between the movement of players from primary and secondary school since there are no connections between primary school and secondary school coaches on the development and performance of players,” he said.
The week-long course was facilitated by FASANOC, through the International Olympic Committee Olympic Solidarity funding program and included 19 participants from ten national federations.