Sport coaching centres are laser focussed on bringing the best out of their athletes, both physically and mentally. Centres like PeakLevel in Belgium work with individuals and large organisations to consciously aid them in achieving their goals.
The aim is always to guide clientele- individual athletes, teams and groups alike- towards their goals using a multi-disciplinary approach that makes the most out of the power of the individual. Personal journeys are planned and mapped out by a sport coaching centre’s experts: screening, testing and coaching is followed in minute detail every step of the way. However, though the minutiae are carefully observed, the larger picture is always front-and-centre, so that a complete image and path is formed and followed.
Multidisciplinary approaches are fundamental to the successes achieved by coaching centres. Current training status, physical requirements, mental health and more are all factored into initial screenings. All are built upon throughout training to ensure the strongest, healthiest version of each individual emerges.
There has been a sharp rise in coaching centre usage in recent years, especially in more affluent sectors of society. CEOs and business owners looking to get involved with triathlons and marathons use them; large companies send their teams to them to get as fit and healthy as possible, offering membership as a perk; stars and celebs wanting to get in shape for their next big project make use of them. All will benefit from the multidisciplinary, expert focus available in coaching centres.
Coaching
Training and training guidance are quite often performed via a mixture of in-person coaching, online coaching using a variety of platforms, group training, which is perfect in particular for larger groups (such as teams or employees of the same company) and solo-training, where the athlete does their homework and gets their workout in on their own. Schedules are all personalised, as you would expect from a personal trainer set-up, and they are adjusted in real time, often weekly, to account for the athlete’s individual progress and requirements.
As mentioned above, coaching centres generally make use of multidisciplinary approaches. With this in mind, there will often be a lot of types of physiotherapy and mental training alongside the broader, physical coaching. Nutrition will be covered, with full plans tailored to individual needs and goals.
All of these will become more than the sum of their parts as a holistic approach. Any athlete is a whole: treating them as such, paying attention to all facets of their selves, will help them to thrive to the best of their abilities.
A personal approach
The hands-on, in-depth approach available in coaching centres will generally highlight personal quality. The coach and the athlete will work together, each sometimes taking the lead, each sometimes following, so that each one’s priorities are set and met.
It’s not just down to one coach: just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to train an athlete. Where necessary and appropriate (which is quite often), other experts will be drafted in- nutritionists, physiotherapists, masseuses, kinesiologists, and so on.
It’s also not just down to one athlete, in isolation. Though the individual reigns supreme in coaching centres, community is also taken seriously. Whether they are working with a team or group, or with a solo athlete, a coaching centre should be a networking community, bringing like-minded people together: making use of the Gold Mine effect.
This is apparent both in group exercise classes and in social activities hosted by coaching centres. It makes the experience more enjoyable, more emotionally rewarding, and perhaps even more creatively rewarding as these like minds come together.
Injury prevention and treatment
We all knock ourselves around a bit as we train. It’s part and parcel with hard exercise: injury, both short term and long, is always a risk.
However, going to the gym on your own, without expert advice, without monitoring, will naturally carry greater risk than training under professional guidance. This is one of the main benefits of personal training everywhere.
It is especially pronounced with coaching centres, kitted out as they are with every mod-con and access to every relevant expert going. Specific tests and studies undertaken by their teams as athletes start out and progress will highlight their danger areas and weak points. Physiotherapists will be able to work on these, bringing them out of that risk zone and strengthening them so that their chances of injury greatly diminish.
Biomechanical screening, podology consultation, mechanical positioning and 3D analyses are just some of the tools in their arsenal. These will all help to mitigate risk factors and stop injuries from occurring in the first place.
However, injury is perhaps inevitable. If not, it is certainly commonplace. Physiotherapists and physiotherapist equipment onsite will make sure that the athlete gets back on their feet and back into training as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Cold immersion therapy is one of the most promising treatments to emerge in recent years. It can be used post-training, regularly, to reduce the risk of injury, can be used after injury as part of the rehabilitation process, and can be used more generally for the many health and fitness benefits it offers.
Cold immersion therapy
Cold immersion therapy is popular with athletes as an aid to recovery, and with health enthusiasts more generally as an energy enhancing, immune system boosting, mood improving practice.
Let’s focus on the athletic side of things for the moment, in the context of a sport coaching centre.
Most athletes who take part in cold immersion therapy do so to minimise the risk of injury, decrease incidents and severity of fatigue and DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness), and to speed up recovery post-workout.
Making use of cold immersion therapy can:
Decrease recovery time after training, allowing the athlete to increase training volume as needed
Decrease recovery time from soft tissue injury or stress
Reduce fatigue and associated symptoms
Reduce inflammation from training
Reduce muscle and joint soreness
Promote neural and cardiovascular system recovery
Improve immune system efficiency
Decrease symptoms of anxiety and/or depression
Traditionally, a cold shower or a bathtub filled with water and ice will be used: the athlete will get in for a few minutes to gain the above benefits.
However, there are some better systems out there, which coaching centres are beginning to employ. Several companies are making systems that offer a superior, more efficient, more user-friendly experience than simply jumping in with a load of ice cubes.
Cryotubs.com offers one of these solutions. Their tub offers an efficient and constant solution, allowing trainers to focus on guiding the athlete, rather than losing time hassling with ice cubes, measuring temperature, cleaning water, and so on. Both athlete and trainer will generally have a better time of it using a professional product like Cryotubs.
In addition, the aesthetics of the cryotub are a definite upgrade to the cheap, plastic toy pools often used, or the substandard detailing on some of the market’s cruder designs. All in all, they represent the kind of high-level, bespoke service that sport coaching centres are known for.
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