Archery Combine Coaching and Science

 

by Rebecca Roberts - 21.05.10

With the arrival of Head Coach Lloyd Brown in January and a busy year of competition, the GB Archery programme is continuing to target success at the London 2012 Games.

Archery’s technical demands and blistering speed requires a breadth of expertise and both coaching and sport science and medicine are combined to keep the squad ahead.

Having already picked up a bronze medal at the World Cup in Croatia from Simon Terry and narrowly missing the men’s team bronze, the squad now face the European Championships next week, 24-30 May in Rovereto, Italy.

Training at their Lilleshall base, where the English Institute of Sport (EIS) also has one of its High Performance Centres, allows a close working relationship between the programme and it’s use of EIS experts including Jamal Mashlab, Physiotherapist, Oliver Logan, Biomechanist and Ruddi Farquharson, Strength & Conditioning Coach.

“The multi-disciplinary approach we take ensures we work closely to deliver key information to Lloyd as Head Coach to ensure the squad continue to progress across training and competition” explains Mashlab, who has travelled with the squad to the European Championships.

“We all profile and benchmark the squad and can put real meaning to our findings and discuss and apply them directly to the programme.

“One area where this is particularly beneficial is injury prevention and the prehabilitation work we are able to do working closely with Lloyd. By identifying potential injury risks, symptoms and adaptations to training early and across the areas we work, we are able to keep ahead of the game and keep athletes ready to train and compete.

Whilst Mashlab delivers physiotherapy support in the treatment rooms he also spends time working with the squad and support team at the training site.

“Along with our biomechanist, being in the training environment enables us to profile athletes, understand how things are developing and picking up on any issues as early as possible” explains Mashlab.

“We also now have a technical booth both at the indoor and outdoor training site which allows us to set up any cameras and high speed cameras for profiling, giving instant feedback, which is working well” he adds.

Having previously coached the US Olympic team to medal success 1996 and 2000, Brown knows what he’s looking for and combines his coaching expertise with the sport science and medical expertise.

“Since starting Lloyd has given me some specific things to monitor across the squad, which is ideal for a biomechanist as we can better profile athletes and translate the data we get back” says Logan.

“Areas include the execution of shot, technique and posture, all critical to an archer’s performance and there are some really detailed aspects we can unpick within each of these key areas.

“Combining Lloyd’s coaching application with the science we work on creates a mutually beneficial partnership whereby we can up-skill each other on our respective areas to ensure we get the best performance gains” he adds.

The programme will take a squad of 12 athletes to the European Championships, 6 recurve and 6 compound, before returning into the World Cup Series across the summer, culminating with the finals in Edinburgh on the 18-20th September and the home country squads will also compete at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October.

For more information about GB Archery visit their website here

For more information about EIS Sport Science & Medicine visit their pages on our site

Photography © Getty Images