China 2010 - Day 2

Today they picked us up at 8:30 a.m. and took us to the Rehab center to start our day. The National Sports training center is like a university campus with each sport having their own building and weight training areas. The facilities are pretty amazing and each Olympic sport has it’s own staff. Most teams have three to four coaches, three team doctors, secretaries who handle schedules, and some teams even have a strength coach. I have been working mostly with the coaches from each team with the exception of the men’s volleyball team who has strength and conditioning coach who actually spent eight years at the University of Missouri on their strength staff.

Long QingQuan - Gold Medalist, 56KG Weightlifting

This morning I worked with an Olympic Gold medalist from the men’s weightlifting team (Long QingQuan - 56KG Weightlifting) . He has some hip and glute problems that had slowed his training progress. I used some CES equipment to work on some abduction, adduction, hip flexors, extensors and some explosive lateral movements. It’s amazing watching and working with the best in the world at what they do. We also worked on some core training as he has been experiencing some low back problems. I put him in the swing harness and had him do some rotational-type exercises from both sides to strengthen the obliques. He really liked my training and both his coach and team doctor watched me train him. It’s always good to get feedback from the athletes, especially at the elite level. You know you’re onto something when at that level, neither the coach, lifter, nor the doctor had ever seen my type of training.


The team doctor told Dr. Lilian that he learned more from me in two hours than he had learned from a week of training from the NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association) who had come to China a couple of years ago to train the coaches.

After I finished with the weightlifter, I then had one of the top badminton players from the men’s team come in for some one-on-one. You probably are wondering how in the world would you train some of these technical sports such as badminton, table tennis, gymnastics, handball and weightlifting.

The CES system was designed to train very specific movements without impeding the actual movements. We use resistance, overspeed and reaction to train each sport and each position within that sport.

Badminton much like tennis or table tennis is a sport where the athlete moves lateral while hitting a birdie with a forehand, backhand and overhead shots. Sounds like tennis doesn’t it? We trained much like how I would and have trained professional tennis players. Again I used the swing harness to train all the overhead movements along with the forehands and backhands. I also used our shackles to work on lateral resistance. I added the reaction coach to the equation - it is a piece of equipment that has lights and sounds and is used to work on reaction.

Remember, reactive speed is true sports speed. You see something, you hear something and your brain has to process it. This type of training is a learned response like riding a bicycle.

Again the athlete loved this type of training because he felt that it was specific to what he does on the court and he could see and feel the differences when I removed the training aids. We trained about two hours and he was pretty much spent.

That was my morning, so now off to lunch. You should know that eating in China is an event. The Chinese love to show their gratitude for your friendship and effort. I learned the very first trip a couple of things. One is, they cook and eat everything, and I mean EVERYTHING from the head, to the feet and everything in between including the inside and outside! The food is generally good, once you can get over knowing what you’re eating. I also learned that the Chinese are masters of the chopsticks - I’m convinced that they could perform surgery with those things. I have watched them eat rice along with a bowl of soup. I have not quite mastered them yet but I’m working on it. Today we had lunch with one of the team doctors from the badminton team and he took us to a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. Again, they eat the feet, the bill and the tongue! I had tried all of those parts on my first trip and did not feel obliged to try it again. I try and stick to the things that I recognized like salads, fruits and some fish and chicken. Just remember, they don’t serve general Tso's chicken like the Chinese restaurants in the states. All in all the food is good. On a side note, I did see a Kentucky fried chicken and a Pizza Hut not far from my hotel. The lunch lasted about two hours and now back to the training center for the afternoon session.

This afternoon I was privileged to work with another Gold medalist from the women’s weightlifting team (Chen Xiexia). She, like the men’s lifter that I had worked with this morning, was having hip and low back issues. We pretty much trained like the other lifter concentrating on all the small muscle use to move laterally. We also did some core movements to help the stabilizers of the trunk. She really liked the workout and was one of the more animated athletes that I have worked with.

This brings me to my next topic, language. I know very little Chinese and most of the athletes do not speak any English. The one thing I’ve learned in my travels abroad, athletes are pretty much the same all over the world. Non-verbal commutations and hand jesters always work. I can train any athlete by showing and touching to convey what I’m trying to explain. Dr Lilian speaks fluent Chinese and translates when I need her.

Today was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed working with the athletes. Now it’s off to the hotel and dinner with some of the training center administrators. The eating cycle continues!