28th March 2012 09:24
The 5th edition of the European Pole Vault and High Jump conference, the first in this year's European Athletics Coaching Summit Series, concluded successfully at the German Sport University in Cologne, with a record entry of 283 participants from 24 countries.
DLV vice-president and former German national pole vault champion Guenther Lohre opened the 16-18 March conference emphasising the need for building international communities for information exchange amongst coaches and scientists.
The first day of the conference was highlighted by insightful lectures by star German athletes like Ariane Friedrich and Martina Strutz.
2009 European indoor high-jump champion Friedrich presented a vivid picture of exciting career with all its ups and downs including her struggles to get back to top shape following a ruptured Achilles tendon in late 2010.
Germany's world championships pole vault silver medallist Strutz, who started working with a jumps coach two-years ago, explained her training regime based on the periodisation model of Germany's successful throwers.
Wolfgang Killing, director of DLV coach's school, explained the general strategy in a throwers' planning of training and showed some possible consequences for the jumps events.
The presentations were discussed in elaborate details by the participants in the following workshops.
Klaus Wirth from Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, gave an overview on strength training in the long term training process on the second morning of the conference.
Prof. Wilhelm Bloch, a world leading expert in cell biology presented some new findings on adaption of cells to training loads. Some of his findings showed the need to reconsider some training means and methods. This became evident in intensive workshop discussions following the presentation.
French pole vault coach Damien Inocencio gave a deeper insight in his training regime with reigning world indoor and European champion Renaud Lavellenie. Falk Schade updated the knowledge on energy transformation in the pole vault with recent findings of top performers.
Bettina Perlt explained the relationship of run-up speed and take off parameters based on long term studies.
Dennis Österberg, CEO of Nordic Sport, closed the afternoon demonstrating the latest state-of-the-art technology used in pole production.
In the session reserved for high jump, renowned coaches Hanne Haugland, Brigitte Kurschilgen and Fuzz Ahmed gave an overview of their training models. Norway's Hanne Haugland, the former high jump world champion explained the guidelines of her coaching approach based on her experiences as an athlete. Germany's national high jump coach Brigitte Kurschilgen explained the planning required to train athletes in a year with both European Championships and Olympic Games taking place in a span of six weeks and showed the master plans for Germany's top athletes.
Fuzz Ahmed, the national high jump coach of the Great Britain and NI team, illustrated the massive changes in UK coaching structure in the last four-years.
He also led a special workshop with German coaches and athletes and answered a lot of questions on technique and training.
Practical session of the three-lecturers were completed by Nadja Himmelseher, a physiotherapist with a specialisation on vertical stabilisation exercises.
On Sunday, Prof. Gert-Peter Brüggemann, one of the world's most recognised bio-mechanists, made a presentation on adaptation of tendons to mechanical load and explained it with a lot of experimental background and practical consequences.
In a simultaneously organised session, Leczek Klima, one of Germany's top pole vault coaches, explained his approach of coaching both young and top athletes.