This morning I got to teach the therapist some new training techniques for rehab. The rehab staff here at the training center is awesome and eager to learn any and all training technique that anybody will teach them. We spent about four hours demonstrating and showing proper training.
At lunch today, the weightlifting doctor took us up into the athlete’s dorm rooms and showed us around the dorms. The athletes live four to a room and the rooms are about the size of a large closet. One small bathroom and no sitting areas is all that they have. I did notice while walking up to the dorms there were Mercedes, BMW’s, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and all sorts of exotic cars and the doctor was quick to point out to me that all these cars are given to any athletes who win Gold!
I have off until four thirty when I will go train the women’s volleyball team. I’m going back to my room and catch a nap for a couple of hours before I go a train the team. By this time into the week, I’m starting to wear out.
It’s 4:00 and I’ve got to get over to the volleyball-training center and set up all my equipment for training along with all the testing that I’m doing today. I have come up with a series of tests to measure aerobic endurance, lower body explosion, and change of direction, dynamic strength, body comp, broad jump and vertical jump. Both of the doctors with me think that all the injuries on the women’s team are related to overtraining and need me to verify it. I can verify it just by hearing there training schedule: 8 hours per day with only one day off. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that one out! To make matters worse, they fired their old coach and the new coach is training these girls to death. We shall see what these tests show.
I warm the girls up and go right into the test. Of the fourteen girls on the team, I only have eight that take part in the testing and training. As I start the testing procedures, I immediately start to see that some of the times were not what I had anticipated with this level of athletes. As it turned out, playing eight hours per day of volleyball does not get you in shape but rather starts the deconditioning process. Let me explain, when you don’t take time to recovery from hard training and I mean 24 to 48 hours of rest after an intense training session your body breaks down and starts to cannibalize itself. If you constantly tear it down and never give it rest, you end up doing more damage and risking injuries, which is now manifesting itself by the evidence of so many girls who can’t participate in the workouts because they are injured.
With the exception of a couple of girls, these tests proved what all of us had suspected - the women’s team is overtraining and needs a major overhaul. The good news for them is that the director believes that we can fix the problem and has assured our team that full cooperation is expected from the volleyball team. I really felt sorry for these girls, as most had some type of injuries. This program was a crown jewel in the Chinese Olympic program for years. As a matter of fact, they won 5 team Gold medals in a row and finished 3rd in the Beijing Olympic games.
We finished the training with seven girls, and even though the intensity was not what I had hoped for, it still was a great experience and the girls enjoyed training in my system. Our team has huddled up and come up with an overall plan to address the needs of this team. Next time I come back we will concentrate on the women’s volleyball team. My recommendations are for the team to train four days of weight training for one and a half hours followed by performance training for one and a half hours and in the morning on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and then cross train in the pool on Wednesdays. The team will still work on skills for a couple of hours in the afternoons and then no training on Saturday and Sunday. This should address the overtraining issues and allow the girls to recover more quickly.
We head back to the hotel for dinner, and afterwards, Dr Lilian suggested we go and have a foot massage to relax. I have to be honest, it was the best massage I have ever had. I was thinking they would just massage my feet . I was wrong, as they worked on my head, back, arms, legs, and hands! It was the first night I really felt relaxed and ready to go to bed. Looking forward to tomorrow.
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