Bob Willingham has put a bunch (okay masses) of photos from the Denate and COnference on his site, go take a look and buy some, so Bob keeps taking them.

http://www.twoj.org/judogallery/bathdeb ... albums.php

I apologise for my own pictures there... I apparently share my kids affliction of Read Eyes and funny faces! :)

The chart above is from my research at the 2006 Commonwealth Judo Tournament.
I have uploaded the data I collected to swivel.net where some great visualisations are automatically generated. Go take a look and see what you can find out!
:)
Below are a few more graphs.

My recent return to training, or attempt at a return is an interesting and enlightening experience, I'd recommend it to any coach.

Recently, I have been struggling with a problem common to all athletes, but one that I don't think is discussed often enough. The problem I have been struggling with is that of scheduling.

So, those of you who have been following the blog for a while will be aware that my training schedule is basically like this.

Monday & Wednesday: Judo
Tuesday, Thursday: Running

This week I have missed all these, why? Bad scheduling.

I run after I get the kids to bed, about 8pm. Which has been really good for me, till recently at least. Here in the UK winter is approaching and the days are shorter and the weather colder and wetter. At 8PM it is dark now, and cold and wet and unmotivating! So I have skipped both my evening runs. On Thursday I attempted to get up at 6AM and run then. But it was still dark and still cold...so my bed won out!


Now... Judo.
I have missed both Judo sessions this week. One through work commitments and the other through swapping cars and forgetting to swap my gear out of the boot, so I had no Gi to train in.

As a... mature Judoka, I have a good (but time consuming) job, a wife and two kids.
When I scheduled my training, I did it partially with the eyes of the young man I was when I last trained seriously. back when I was single, didn't have a "career" to worry about. No house, no kids. I had much more free time and much more flexible time.

It is that flexible time that is key here.
If I could get out for my run half an hour earlier in the evening, it would still be light enough for me to consider running. Judo-wise I could do with slack time between work and Judo. I have to drive straight from work to Judo immediately after work to make it on time. Any disruption (aka working late) and I'm late to Judo. So... no flexible time.

As coaches we need to consider these sorts of issues and work with athletes to ensure that their schedule is not too tight. There is a need to have a some space is between items in their schedules. Make sure that you are factoring in contingency time.

So... over tiredness leads to injury which in turn leads to... missing training! :(

So this week I have missed pretty much all my training, my neck came right about Wednesday. I managed to get out for a run on Saturday, but thats it.

I also suspect that 4 weeks might be near my limit of following one cycle. Macro cycles are typically 6 weeks, but the range is 4-8 weeks. I have scheduled two big 8 week macro cycles in the early phases. But I am revising my programme to put shorter cycles and add more variety.

For those reading, this is an important element when working with Judoka.
You need ensure that a you schedule according to your athlete and be ready to revise.

So lets see how week 6 goes!

Hi all, well I must be in training as I'm injured! :(
More on that later, a odd week, not entirely as I planned it, and up to today it was going pretty well.

Monday
Judo at Paul Jones' in Basingstoke.
A nice solid session, enjoyed myself. The nice thing about this session for me is that the senior men are all pretty large, but the grades are pretty low. So for someone doing what I term "remedial Judo" it is ideal, good physically and yet I am not getting slammed too often.

Tuesday
Running 45 mins.
Still doing the Jeff Galloway 4/1 Run/walk programme. It was a pretty decent run, felt good all the way around. It's getting pretty cold and dark out there by the time I get out (8pm ish), I may have to consider morning runs (shudder).

Wednesday
Judo, HMS Sultan.
Enjoyed this session, did mainly Kumi Kata (Grips) with one other guy. He is fit and a former boxer who is now doing MMA. So there is lots of strength there to work against. The speed he adjusts is great, so it started pretty light and then cranked up through the gears quite nicely.

Thursday
Okay... excuses time.
I got back late and was feeling knackered (see below) so I skipped my run.

Friday
I meant to catch up today. In effect switching my Friday rest day to Thursday... unfortunately I slacked off again.

Saturday
1) Run, I did 5.46 miles first thing.
2) Judo, the rest of the day was taken up with attending sessions at HMS Collingwood, morning and afternoon. By late in the day I was struggling due to injury though. Good to spend that much time on a mat though, my Gi is/was soaked!

Sunday
Nope... I am writing this on Saturday night, but my injured neck (see below) is going to mean no training on Sunday.


Okay... so I am injured.
I have hurt my neck today mucking about at Judo, it's not even an honourable injury sustained in battle. I was just mucking about and have twisted it wrong. It was okay at first, but has stiffened up nicely and now I can barely turn it left without bringing tears to my eyes. :(

This week, I have learned an important lesson, I needto get to bed earlier. Looking back at this week I see 5 consecutive late nights, which lead to the slacking off later in the week, and probably to me being wesk in the neck department today.

A right shame, but the whole point of this training and in particular blogging about my training is to revisit bing "an athlete" and learn by doing.

I have read articles and heard anecdotes about how athletes often don't rest properly. Both in terms of too much training too close together, but also plain old fashioned sleep.

This week, I made that mistake and paid the price later in the week, and arguably today hurting my neck!

The thing is you know you should sleep, but life gets in the way. The next day you don't feel too bad, heck even after a couple of days I felt okay. But come Thursday evening I was shot! I did nothing, and yet, ended up staying up later than I should again. It;s so easy to do, there is blogs to read and write, TV shows to watch, family to be with, sleep is the easiest (and last thing in the day) thing to cut down on.

But, it's a false economy. By the end of the week I was knackered and missed 1-2 sessions. Then if you factor in tiredness into my neck injury, you can say I may have lost many many sessions.

I'd like to know how many athletes have similar tales, if they are aware of how much sleep they need and how much they are getting in each week.

So, lots of pain, but I feel happy at least that it made this post have a point. That it's reminded me as a person and as a coach that being aware of the rest players are getting is as important as knowing how much training they are doing.

Hopefully my neck will feel better after a good nights sleep! :)