Friday, November 26, 2010

German strength and conditioning coach begins his work at South Hobart










Photos (Top to Bottom): Marcus Parschau, South Hobart's new fitness coach; Ken Morton and Marcus Parschau discuss the first session's activities; Parschau demonstrates an activity using a fit-ball; Parschau supervises a stretching exercise; Parschau consults his notes in the teeming rain; Parschau watches over his charges; The players work under Parschau's supervision; Ken Morton addresses the players; Out come the fit-balls [PlessPix]

Marcus Parschau, the new strength and conditioning coach at South Hobart, began his work with the club yesterday during the first pre-season training session.

Parschau, who comes from a town near Berlin, has been in Australia for almost three years.

He is employed at the Friends’ Health and Fitness Centre and agreed to work with South Hobart after being introduced to senior coach Ken Morton earlier this year by Gary Pennicott, who brings some of his primary school classes to swimming classes at Friends.

Parschau has a degree in sports science from Germany.

“It’s the equivalent to a bachelors degree in human movement here,” Parschau said.

“I worked for the institute of sport in my area [in Germany] and was looking after some athletes, and I was playing basketball for a while and managing a basketball club.

“At South Hobart, I hope I can do something to improve their fitness.

“I hope to be able to help to reduce the number of injuries, and I’ll be working on rehabilitation as well.

“We will be trying to avoid injuries and I’ll be preparing the players for next season so that we have the same success we had last season.”

Parschau watched South Hobart in last season’s finals series and he sees plenty of potential in the club.

He also sees great potential in the elite squad from the Morton Soccer School.

“It’s good that very young players are enjoying the sport,” Parschau said.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck to Marcus & South Hobart. Good to see a club trying to develop the right mentality in it's players but also create a model for the next generation coming through.

South Hobart are setting the bar higher for other clubs to follow. Hopefully we will see a much more 'professional' approach to not only the game and how it is played but also in match and training preparation and especially injury prevention and recovery.

Anonymous said...

It's only a gym instructor who cares

Anonymous said...

Já estava com saudades de ver reportagem do South Hobart. Abraços Walter.

Anonymous said...

Isn't Nathan pitchford Qualified in human movement? Does that make him a news story?

Anonymous said...

"It's only a gym instructor who cares"

That is a poor way of pointing out that clubs have had such fitness coaches before. It's nothing new.

Is it news worthy? Debatable, but I read it and you read it. Doesn't that answer the question.

Anon 9:05am
"Good to see a club trying to develop the right mentality in it's players but also create a model for the next generation coming through."

What does this ACTUALLY mean and how does it relate to the article? An article based on physiology rather than psychological elements? Also what is the 'right' mentality?

Not trying to troll you buddy but you made a fairly generic statement that sounds more like a marketing spiel.

"South Hobart are setting the bar higher for other clubs to follow."

I would agree with this.

My 2 cents worth. I'm calling BS on fitness coaches who haven't played extensive football and/OR coached before. Such fitness coaches may fall into the horrible trap of increasing player’s fitness WITHOUT the ball.

I would only employ the talents/experience of a fitness coach who knows how to improve fitness through on the ball skills.

Finally Kenny is a top coach no doubt. He is thorough in his approach and tries instil as much professionalism into a local side as possible. However (and he may have changed) he killed a lot of my spirit and love for the game due to the amount of running involved in his training sessions and strict rigidity of a players role in a given position within a specific formation.

I read the Adam Whitemore's (Northern Rangers coach) interview and was hugely impressed with his approach to the game and coaching. The impression I got from that was that he gives his player confidence to express themselves therefore allowing them more time on the ball and hence forth better skills to deal with various situations.

Is it just me or has that interview been removed Walter?

Anonymous said...

seems to be alot of jealous people at other clubs... why dont you come down for a training session?

Walter said...

Anonymous 11.40am, the Adam Whitemore interview is still on the blog. If you look at the list of articles on the right of the page you will find it, or you can simply scroll down until you find it. It was published this month.
Cheers!

Walter said...

Anonymous 11.24am, yes, that does make Nathan a news story. Create your own blog and write a story about him. In the meantime, I'll continue to write stories on this blog that I think may be of interest to readers. Some of these stories won't be of interest to all readers, of course, so they are free to ignore them. I am at present trying to cover the game in Tasmania during the off-season, which is a quiet time. If you find some of the stories not particularly newsworthy, then don't read them. Buy a paper instead and see if you can find a local football story.

Anonymous said...

Walter what new players were at souths training, plus who was missing

Anonymous said...

Touche Walter. Well said.

Anonymous said...

Well said Walter.

11.40am, the wide wide world of web is a big place buddy, ur not going to like it all.

As 4 the fittness coach at south, good on them. If nothing else, he provides variety. We have all done plenty of pre-seasons before and they are (and should be) hard work. Keeping the new and interesting is a challenge. South will blow teams off the park this year. Again.

Anonymous said...

The National Football Curriculum advise strongly against this type of fitness training. All football conditioning should be done with a ball. Don't waste prescious training time with fitness training that does not improve skill and gives us no football information. The National curriculum is pretty clear on this point. It aslo talks about stretching being dynamic and not static as we see in the photo. I think the new coach should explore the football conditioning practices in the curriculum.

Anonymous said...

Walter said...
Anonymous 11.24am, yes, that does make Nathan a news story. Create your own blog and write a story about him. In the meantime, I'll continue to write stories on this blog that I think may be of interest to readers. Some of these stories won't be of interest to all readers, of course, so they are free to ignore them. I am at present trying to cover the game in Tasmania during the off-season, which is a quiet time. If you find some of the stories not particularly newsworthy, then don't read them. Buy a paper instead and see if you can find a local football story.

November 26, 2010 12:45 PM



well said walter, keep up with the blog. alot of people appreciate the work you put into it.

football follower.

Anonymous said...

Most clubs have fitness trainers, it is nothing new.

Knights have done fitness work with Leon Van Lierop for two seasons including cycle classes, Zebras have a strength and conditioning coach, Clarence have a conditioning coach, Marcelo does conditioning and strength work in pre-season with Kingbrough and then Metro have Jayden 'lazerbeak' Wiggins.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3.51. How can you comment on the stretching that is being done ?The only photo you could be referring to is the one where all players are in a push up position with one leg crossed over the other. How do you know that this stretch was not at the end of training ? There is nothing wrong with stretching at the end of a physical session.The NFC refers to warm up stretching and that they should be dynamic.There is nothing wrong with some light stretching after working hard.

Anonymous said...

it would be alot smarter if some people would come and watch a session before making silly statements regarding ball work etc, i watched last night and there wasnt one minute where a ball wasnt used... again.... jealous.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4.41 Who is the Zebras strength & conditioning coach ? Most clubs have trainers ( or first aid people) They are not strength & conditioning coaches.

Anonymous said...

Not 100% sure on this but didn't Olympia use a sports physician the season just gone.
And just on the recording of games, I seem to remember that Olympia were using Stefano for recording their games each week.
It seems that some teams are just following suit with Olympia.
Maybe they know a little more than the other clubs which didn't show this year but with any luck may see them fair better for season 2011.

Tripod.

Anonymous said...

As a club level strength and conditioning coach and a player i think it's important to have a balance between skill based fitness and pure fitness.

Remember that as a player, most of the movement in the game is done without the ball.

You're not going to increase your speed by primarily doing dribbling drills.

So it's important to do pure fitness by breaking it down into different components such as aerobic, anaerobic and sprint work for running.

It's about having a good balance between the different approaches and creating variety. Also a good understanding from the players that they are expected to work as hard as they can for the team.

Pure fitness drills develop more mental strength and when you work as a team you feel good afterwards because you achieved something together.

Another point is most training sessions, if not all, consist of ball based drills. Good coaches will have their players working hard on these drills without letting them get lazy.

Fitness is developed throughout the whole session, not just the 'fitness component' of any one session.

Chel

Walter said...

Anonymous 2.57pm, all the players at training are shown in the photo (about 22 of them). There was a new Frenchman, and former player Dean Willcock was there, too.

Anonymous said...

Well said walter & chel, only ever popping up when you have something decent to say and leave the rest to be done on the pitch.

Anonymous said...

chels philosophy is as advanced as his skill with the ball

Anonymous said...

Olympia held a very good nutirtion and first aid session with players and coaches at its new facility on Thursday night. This was held by the Club's physio. The Club's website shows latest pics of the ground developments, which are progressing despite the weather.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comments re static versus dynamic stretching. I suggest that one is better for targeting muscles to prevent (re)injury and the latter is better for general stretching without threatening muscle power. The doctor versus the coach??

Anonymous said...

The whole argument with do you use the ball 100% of the time is a bit of case by case argument. The National curriculum says one thing then you read the FFA 11+ warm up recommended by their medical research centre and there is no ball work at all.

It depends on the group you have... can they do some elements of the preseason without the ball or do they need it for motivation?
What work for one group might no work for the other.

There are two reasons for doing preseason especially before Christmas. to get some condition into the players and to also find ou who is committed to the cause. Finding out who is more committed, especially amongst Gen Y's, is a handy thing to know. Are they interested in doing their own thing or do they do what you ask?

Its an interesting argument but I don't think you can definitely say one way is right or wrong.

Nik Owen

P.S. I like the new hostile Walter!!! Don't take their crap... especially from the Anon's who don't offer a name!

Anonymous said...

I went to the pub on sat night and held my own nutrition course. It ended at 5am this morn.

Anonymous said...

rumor has it zebras strength and conditioning coach works as Tas Tigers cricket and Clarence AFL and put them through tough sessions on Saturday.Looks like Zebras on a mission to challenge for title.