Back in 1992 whilst at Medical School I wrote a dissertation on “Programming of Movement in Parkinson’s Disease” where I looked at all the neural pathways involved in the programming of movement. Little did I know some 16 years later this would become very relevant  in understanding complex movements for sport and what I am now involved in with Games Education.

The Super 6 Challenge is now up and running.  Get your Hotspot and take part! Can you beat the trainer???

Hotspot Super 6 Challenge – Video

MAKE IT COUNT WITH HOTSPOT!

Hi all a little piece about the merits and values of straight line sprints in assessment. This was stimulated by a discussion I had with the head of fitness at a Premiership football club yesterday….

So in a number of sports a straight line sprint features in many assessments for talent identification, fitness and general baseline measurements. It is standard in the LTA and used in many football clubs. But here’s some conundrums for you :

1. Is it relevant to the sport / game play?

2. Does it have positive predictive value for athletic success in that sport?

3. Is there a better test that might address points 1 & 2?

Hi all. I (Fraser Harban) Just returned form a quality convention and trade show – the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in Baltimore. Really impressed with many things – not least – boy do they know how to put on a great event and I now have a rather large selection of NSCAA branded goods!

So what really struck me the most was the knowledge, dedication and passion of the coaches on the ground. Every single one who visited the stand (quite a few I can tell you) really wanted to see what the HotSpot had to offer and how it could help their sessions and ultimately their teams.

Hi there!  This time I am going to explain the timing modes that are available on the Hotspot systems and where they may be used.  This should help in identifying how the Hotspot may be incorparated into your training programmes.

The Hotspot PRO system is the latest addition to the Hotspot PRO family and is the most complete training system available.  Coming in at just £350 + VAT the system offers a complete training system for developing movement abilities.

VIDEO OF PRO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiew5hIjri4

It builds on the Hotspot concept of providing a system that is affordable yet versatile enough to fit into any training program for any sport.  The wireless “hotspots” offer  a simple way to create movement patterns and drills for your training program whilst offering an easy way to be flexible adhering to the needs of your athletes.

Welcome to the first “drill” post on the Hotspot blog.   In this post I have created a drill to train/coach/test elements of the “flow” step used in variety of situations within tennis.

The “flow” step is commonly used as a means of defending wide balls that have caused you to be on the run and over stretched.  The “flow” step allows you to hit the ball on the move and implement a braking method allowing quick and efficient recovery back into the court.  I am going to provide 3 variations of the drill and alongside each provide some coaching tips and analysis.

Hello again,  this will be a short post (maybe) about yet again a difficult question.  Just to give some background there are stages of tennis development (red/orange/green) and age groups associated with them.  Also in the mix is mini ratings that are competition based that suggest how a player is developing within the stage.  Just to really complicate things take the varying degrees that children develop and you are now in a pickle! Now to the question…when should children move up to the next stage?

The obvious answer is that it is at the discretion of the coach when he/she feels it is appropriate and that the child is demonstrating the relevant skill set.  Of course this differs from coach to coach so is there an answer?

Hi all.  This is a very interesting question about the importance of winning and it extends further into the relevance and purpose of competition at a young age.

Very young players are very much learning the game and in fact learning to play the game in a way that their coach wants them to.  What I mean is that if a coach is teaching hitting for depth then the coach would like to see this within matchplay at the expense of winning, right?  This past week my focus in training (mini red) has been using the forehand as a weapon in particular the run around or inside out forehand.  To my great pleasure my players tried to do this in their matches but with varying degrees of success sometimes resulting in losing.  Is this bad?

Hello, Fraser here with my first blog…
Just felt inspired to write about something that I did yesterday with some young kids from social housing locally to here – no great sainthood on the horizon but very humbling and highlights a few points….

The background to this is the fundamental core of Games Education as a company – the one thing that led Mike and I to set it up. Not making huge sums of money (although maybe one day it would be nice to pay off all the loans!) but the strong belief and desire that every child playing sport and exercise should be able to use techniques and equipment similar to the professionals…