State of Strength and Conditioning in Womens Volleyball in OZ
There is no state of conditioning from what I can see. What seems to be required is a planned developmental scheme for girls from before puberty through to adult status. How can this be achieved? Seems to me that some time has to be put aside to fitness training even though coaches will argue they only have time for skills development which is a valid one. But windows exist for physical devleopment and movement abilities and if missed are hard to catch up on.
Chris Connolly
I wish Chris Connolly all the best. I met him when I was thinking of moving to Fremantle Football Club in 2004 and he was very helpful in the negotiations. He flew my son and I to Perth for a few days to assess working at the club but I decided to accept Geelong Football Clubs counter offer of a 3 year contract . Well all is history now. Would have been a pleasure to work with him. Wish him and family all the best.
Hi from Loris
I have started this space so that I can share some of my experiences in coaching, strength and conditioning and rehabilitation since the early 70’s. I trained in Europe for 2 years in the late 70’s and I was an Australian Champion in Athletics in 1980 and in the first intake in 1981 at the AIS. After that period I was a teacher and gym manager. I coached sprinters, jumpers and throwers for a number of years at National Level. I even tried my luck at veterans sprinting for a year and ran a scintillating 11.6. HA. From 1987 to now I have been involved in the AFL with Essendon, Collingwood, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs. In fact now I also work in soccer with Green Gully a great club in the Victorian League under Ian Dobson. I have assisted athletes from many sports from netball, tennis, water skiing to boxing amongst other sports and worked with many different organisations. My daughter has played for Australia in Vollyeball as a setter and I assist her with her S&C. Thus I have learnt so much since my days with my father George who initially coached me to working with people like Franz Stampfl, Victor Verez, Gus Puopolo, and many other coaches here and overseas . And in the past ten years I was able to grow with the sports science boom in OZ and given my academic science background couple this with my practical background. In team sports I have been privy to many famous coaches from Kevin Sheedy to Leigh Matthews and Mark Thompson who have taught me a lot about the politics of sport. Recently I have had a very enjoyable experience coaching Royden Pattison who is a marathon runner. He had severe Osteitis a few years ago and then a hole in the heart operation in 2006 and now is competing again. This is a very small snaphot of my career and hopefully underpins this space.
loris bertolacci 