Van de Broek delivers series of inspirational classes in Bangkok

Gert Van de Broek, a long-time head coach of the Belgian women’s national team, aka the ‘Yellow Tigers’, and member of the European Coaches Commission (ECOC), has already delivered a series of truly inspirational classes as activities run in conjunction with the EuroAsia Coaches Cooperation Project continue in full swing in Bangkok.

The day started with a practical session held at the FIVB Development Centre with participation of the Thailand men’s senior Volleyball team. Van de Broek focussed on tactical training and structuring the practice to include exercises that progressively layered different focused actions in play in order to bring the players' close attention to the movements and purpose.

After that, the Belgian expert delivered a complementary theoretical session where he discussed with the participating coaches – four from Europe and three from Asia – the importance of establishing the rationale behind practices with the players. This was an opportunity for Van de Broek to share the core assets of his coaching philosophy:

• Technical comes before tactical
• Correct the movements before adding tactic
• Provide players with exercises in the beginning that close off as many external “Volleyball environmental” factors to just bring attention to the action/movement being executed as technically accurate as possible; step by step add more environmental factors in play
• Coaches can speak less and allow the players to self-correct in the exercises. This also creates a specific desired culture amongst the team/players to bring self-awareness in trainings.

The afternoon sessions took place at the Sports Authority of Thailand Sports Science Centre – a newly renovated facility with top technology equipment and staff for strength, conditioning, nutrition, medical, physiotherapy, biometrics, training areas, psychology, rehabilitation, etc. – with a focus on the injury prevention coaches must integrate in their programmes and on how to analyse the loads on each player.

Van de Broek’s colleagues Stijn Vereecken and Arne Jaspers joined online from Belgium to assist in explaining different data and strategies for injury prevention in strength and conditioning trainings, the impact of certain injuries on training and playing abilities as well as injury incidence. Van de Broek shared many different exercises for coaches to try that they may use for their players to help with strength, stability and injury prevention.

The activities in Bangkok continue until March 28 – with the programme the first such action to bring together coaches from Europe and Asia.