Coaching and Care of Athletes

BUiLDING TRAINING SCHEDULES Athletes, in which I set out training schedules for all the events comprising the international track and field programme. In that book I gave comprehensive training tables for every event, based on five months' training for men and three months' training for boys . The book contains also tables of effort to guide the athlete in his training, which can, I believe, best be graded on the basis of a c~rtain expenditure of effort to achieve a maximum result at the right time. Those tables, both for training and of effort, are the outcome of some twenty-five or thirty years of experience, and they were not prepared without a great deal of research, experimentation, and careful thought. In my opinion every coach who is in charge of a team, or who may be coaching an individual, should prepare some such general programme of training for the whole period in which the athletes or athlete will be in his care. In preparing the schedule the coach should have it in mind that the athlete must be brought into training gradually, and should reach the peak of his form some ten days to three weeks in advance of the competition for which he is training. May I add a rider to this proposition? When I say that the athlete should reach his peak of form two or three weeks prior to the competition I do not mean that he should produce a peak performance so far in advance of his particular event, but rather that the ability to do so should be latent at that time. When, according to the coach's experience, the athlete whom he is training has reached that physical condition and attained that mental attitude whieh make it obvious to the coach that his pupil is ready for the big effort, although he is not to be allowed to attempt it just yet, the all– important tapering-off process should begin. What he has done in training so far, including his trials and perhaps some leading– up competitions, has involved the breaking d0wn of tissues and the removal of superfluous fat. The training diet, which was the main subject of the previous chapter, has meanwhile helped to rebuild the muscular tissues, and has also stored up a good reserve of energy in the athlete's liver. None the less the breaking-down part of the training schedule has involved a certain loss of vitality, and perhaps some of the athlete's reserv.e of strength- that is to say, energy-may have been called on to such an extent that it is slightly impaired. Now, although the athlete 'is ,obviously ready for the big effort, the coach must take into consideration the ,amount of wastage !23