The Senior Lead Team was fully put through its paces this weekend with a full weekend of competition simulation, conditioning and flexibility workshops with some of the country’s best coaches.

Manager of the Senior Team, Tom Randall gives the low-down on what the BMC and its volunteers are doing to make our national team the best it can be…

Last weekend, we had possibly our most jam-packed and informative training weekend yet:- International standard (and style) competition routes set by Steve McClure at Leeds Wall, coaching a video analysis from Neil Gresham, gymnastics coaching from one of the GB coaches at Leeds Met Uni and a flexibility and performance workshop with one of the world’s best high divers and Olympian, Tony Ally.

Day 1, kicked off at Leeds Wall with 3 routes set by Steve McClure especially for the team. They were all given strict instructions to stay away from the wall for the days preceding the training weekend, so that all routes to could be climbed in a pure on-sight style. Neil Gresham ran through route mapping and visualisation skills before the guys were put through their paces in competition format. Still strong from his previous weekend’s performance at the BLCCs Drew Haigh took the title for the day, only failing high on the final route at a hefty 8a+. This is bearing in mind that he’d only on-sighted an 8a just 30 minutes previously. Upstairs in the conference room, we ran through everyone’s climbs on the video projector trying to pick out the critical errors that had occurred on the attempts.

Day 2, started with a morning’s session with GB Gymnastics coach, Chris Low at Leeds Met Uni. He ran the team through a series of warm-ups before setting them on a circuit of gymnastics conditioning exercises that the squad all use for strengthening arms, shoulders, back and core. A number of the conditioning exercise proved to particularly entertaining when it came to using the rings and parallel bars! The session finished with a discussion with Chris about training principles, structuring and competition specific strategies that gymnasts use.

The afternoon saw us back at the Leeds Wall (only after I’d led everyone in their respective cars down every awkward backend street in Leeds!) for a workshop with Tony Ally. As a competitive athlete for the last 27 years, who has been an Olympian and ranked in the top of the world rankings consistently for many years, he is an invaluable source of knowledge. He spent some time talking through goal planning, long-term motivation and professionalism within sport and how to make it to the top. As well as providing some motivational insight for the team, he also ran through a series of stretching routines and also did a little soft-tissue massage with a number of the team – another of his many skills! It was very interesting to watch someone in the team who could barely touch their ankles at the start of the session, happily laying their palms flat on the floor after just a few minutes of work with Tony.

The future for the senior team is set to be bright with some extremely experienced members of the team coming to fruition and some of the young guns coming on through. We have had Neil Gresham, Steve McClure and Mark Pretty all running climbing sessions with the team and we also have further support promised from the British Divers and also Leeds Met Uni Gymnastics.

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