The aim of the EA is to increase the number and quality of endurance athletes in Coventry and Warwickshire and in turn to increase the number and quality of teachers and coaches identifying and supporting those athletes. The academy’s goal is to have at least 1 coach in each Warwickshire club, and the units that they may coach in are:

The basics......

General information about EA, what it is, what it does, and how it works can be found here.

A useful EA document on nutrition for athletes written by Ron Maughan of Loughborough Uni can be found here.

Much more about the coaches can be found on the Godiva Harriers website here.

The UKA Coaching website can also be found here.

Below is an extract from a paper presented by Dave Dix of Coventry Godiva to the Spa Striders Committee......

The University of Warwick Endurance Academy and its proposed programme to impact on local coach development.

Our goal is to work with at least one coach in each Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire club. The units below can be taken as one complete programme or the coach can select relevant units depending on their interest / availability. For coach I am taking this to be either, a qualified UK Athletics coach / Leadership in Running Fitness coach or a senior athlete currently leading activity in a club setting.

For most coach development units I will be looking at a maximum of a two hours workshop.

Technical Master Classes and Group Training Sessions

In two settings, workshops and group training session; engage national and local coaches to lead on the technical training that is required for endurance success. The running competences we are seeking to highlight are

• Aerobic endurance athletes to develop an efficient cardiovascular and respiratory system through long easy running and steady state runs.

• Threshold running to be completed over varying distance and surfaces at a constant speed. Athletes to understand what this “constant speed” is for them.

• Speed Training

• Fartlek speed play - running over varying distances and undulating terrain

• Speed Endurance the training benefits that can be achieved through interval training where the number and times of reps and recoveries are pre planned and progressed through out the training year

• Technique developing in runners an efficient running style and exploring how an athlete can improve their running economy

• Planning finally how to bring together in a training programme all the required elements of running to bring improvement in performances. To consider the demands of different endurance events, developing training phases, progressing training loads and peaking for a key competition.

Strength and conditioning

After developing an understanding of the benefits of strength and conditioning for the endurance athlete our Strength and Conditioning consultant (Max Jones) will lead a series of practical workshops with the coach to develop training programmes that will demonstrate the following competences in endurance athletes.

• Athletic runners who are able to “run tall,” can accelerate and can hop & bound

• Athletes who have experience of control & stability exercises

• Athletes who are stable in one legged strength exercises

• Experience of recovery strategies such as self massage and stretching

Our aim is to give the coach confidence in promoting within a club setting general fitness programmes that focus on aerobic conditioning and muscular endurance through circuits.

Common Running Injuries and how to avoid them
A workshop programme to provide coaches with an insight into the common running injuries that can occur for an endurance athlete in training. The workshop leader (Mark Buckingham) will provide the coaches in attendance with a clear understanding of these injuries and why they often occur. They will then lead the practical workshop to consider how training can be adapted to either avoid these injuries or if they do happen, how to minimise there consequences.

Our aim is to provide coaches with practical tools to review athletes’ running styles and diagnose common running weaknesses that can be addressed through strength and conditioning exercises, improvements in running equipment OR when things do go wrong alternative endurance training such as cross training and aqua running.

It is likely that this will be a one day, weekend workshop, which dependent on demand and speaker availability could be offered twice within the year

Nutrition

The importance of endurance athletes making healthy food choices. To consider how dietary modification can help to

• sustain training sessions,

• aid recovery,

• maximise training adaptations and ultimately improve performance

• for junior athletes a unit on alcohol and drug education

Endurance Physiology / Sport Science
To provide coaches with a practical insight into endurance physiology and how an understanding of sport science can help them to create a training programme that will result in long term success for endurance athlete. In smaller groups of club based coaches to consider appropriate training loads for junior athletes and how to progress them to long term senior success.

Psycho-Behavioural

The aim of this workshop theme is to assist the coach in her / his work with individual athletes and / or small group to develop long term senior excellence. To include

• Encouraging a positive approach to competition, training and injury rehabilitation

• Goal setting

• Presenting a training programme

• Developing responsibilities and appropriate awareness in young athletes to include self organisation, time management and an appreciation of the commitment required to improve

• Identifying where to find good decision makers