Today marked the half-way point to the second week of training. On Tuesday we experienced the fatigue levels that we expected at the end of the first week. It was interesting to see the group fight the fatigue and try to bring something positive to the gym. Creating positive energy is a strong part of our culture that we are hoping achieve with our team.
When I woke up on Tuesday morning it felt like I was hit by a truck. My body was sore, I hit snooze three times. I thought wow if I am this beat, how do the players do it? We had a great Monday of practices after being off for a day, but fatigue was still lingering in our muscles and brains. When the warm-up ball control started everyone in the gym was a little off. I went around talking to some of the team and they said it felt like they were running and jumping in sand. They were not able to get moving and were jumping lower. We knew once they battled through this everything gets better, this is all part of training your body to expect and sustain the training load. Our athletic therapists and the rest of the medical staff were excellent. They kept the team going, dealing with all their aches and pains and even moved into the role of being a cheerleader for them as they battled the fatigue.
The typical day for these athletes and coaches are 6 hours of practice and weights combined. The athletes who have been around knew that this is a time that trouble can creep in. They were able to identify some of the hotspots that could happen in this situation and have been proactive in making sure these issues don't come up. One example is the setting up and taking down of the nets. The vets made a schedule early. Everyone will have to do their share. Makes it a more positive environment and adds to our culture.
The team chemistry is pretty good, they are all trying to get to know each other. The anglophones are trying to use a few of their french words that they know. One of the Quebec girls was in line for supper in the cafeteria, and a team mate was trying to get her to say a german word for something. She responded that she was trying to learn english, one new language was enough for right now! The team has pulled the tables together in a large group during meal times and really are getting along great. It is a great feeling overall. I know it will be an adjustment when the team goes from 17 to 12. This will be a tough time, excitement that they are going to Thailand and China, but also sadness because our team of 17 needs to split for this event. Our motto from the beginning is that we are a team of 17 and we know that any success we have is because of the help of the 5 who don't travel. As a coaching staff we are still along way from knowing the team, everyone brings something different to the team and they can help us. Plus we are really starting to enjoy all the athletes personalities.
More on the fun side now. WE are having a mini tournament tomorrow, a chance for the athletes to show everyone how they have improved from the start of the training. Also a chance to show the coaches they are ready to compete. At the end of practice today Alain explained the teams and the process. With the A team athletes we are 21 players. So we split into 3 teams and are playing a 3 team round robin. We are playing 4 sets no matter what in order to better control the time. WE are also using this tournament for our plus minus competitive list. If you win the 4 sets out right everyone on that team will get 3 pt, if it is a tie then 1pt each. Then each set is worth 5 points. If the team that wins holds the opposition under 18 they get 5 bonus pts per set. If they hold them under 22 they will get 4 pts and the opposition will get 1 pt. If they win by 3 or less they will get 3 points while the opposition gets 2 points. The idea of this is to keep teams fighting for every point possible. if a team wins the maximum they will get 23 points in that match. OF course I expect my team to win.
The second part of the matches is to get the athletes thinking of game plans and tendencies. I beleive this is one of the weaker things we do as coaches. We need to teach our athletes to look for tendencies more during matches. to remember what has happened before and be proactive to the possibilities. thehe setters needed to come up with a game plan, explain what type/ speed of sets that their attackers like to use. The second was to discuss blocking of their opponents, which blocker they would go after and which one they would avoid. Other questions they needed to answer were; which opposition middle is a read blocker and which middle can you control? Liberos had to talk about the opposition attackers and what are their shot patterns? What do they think would be our best blocking scheme? Who on the opposition is the best server and who is the weaker server? The outside attackers needed to think about serving targets and defensive weakness of the oppositions. They were expected to work together and begin to think about patterns and opposition weakness. All the different groups then were to email their coaches and let them know their ideas. I was really impressed with my teams emails and how thorough they were.
I am excited to watch the teams play. I am coaching team 2, and have begun to trash talk the other coaches and athletes. Hope my team can back up their coaches words. WE will find out tomorrow, tonight we prepare.
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