Becoming Your Version of an Athlete

Becoming Your Version of an Athlete

CREATING AN INDIVIDUAL APPROACH TO TRAINING

We are delighted to announce that Jamie Geraghty, founder of Bar Monkey Calisthenics, has launched his first book!

This has been release in ebook format and will soon be available also in paperback.

For anyone with an interest in Youth Athlete Development, understanding how to develop someone by taking an individual approach, this book will help you to look at training in a completely different context.

Whether you are an athlete, you can better understand yourself and what type of training you need in order to progress. You will gain a better insight into your own physical characteristics, your emotional response to training, to competition and your cognitive reactions.

As a coach, you will learn how to work with each individual, and to treat them as just that, a unique person in front of you with their own specific physical characteristics, emotions and goals.

This book, if broken down in it’s simplest form, wants to look at the Coach | Athlete relationship and to create a better understanding around how we can develop that relationship.

A coach must understand the athlete in front of them physically, emotionally and cognitively in order to help them flourish and reach their own potential.

Overall, a coach will learn how to create a structure that suits the individual, not fitting an individual into their structure.

Sport is one of life’s greatest forms of expression—the opportunity to showcase your creativity, your artistry, the individual within.

As coaches, why do we so often place athletes all in the same box? Or in a fitness setting, why is every person given the same ‘beginner’ programme over and over?

Much like placing a bird in a cage, if we never truly understand the individual, they will never know their wings are supposed to be used to fly. - Jamie Geraghty

Becoming Your Version of an Athlete : Creating an Individual Approach to Training is available on Amazon now.

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Jamie Geraghty Qualifies for the WSWCF World Cup Super Final

On Saturday August 17th our Head Coach and creator of Bar Monkey Jamie Geraghty became the first Irish Person to qualify for the WSWCF World Cup Super Final.

This takes place in Hong Kong on November 23rd and Jamie qualified by taking third place at the Royalbarzz World Cup Stage in Veldhoven, Holland. Jamie taking a place on the podium represents a huge moment for the sport in this country, helping our club and also the calisthenics community across Ireland gain International recognition.

The structure of the competition saw 20 athletes competing from across Europe hoping to earn a spot on the podium and represent their country in the Super Final.

First Round

The first round of the event saw all twenty athletes being given three minutes to perform as best as they could. Judges were then given the responsibility of judging Statics, Dynamics and Combinations. The best ten would then make it through to the second round.

Jamie performed a huge amount of static holds in the three minutes allocated to him. Each athlete showcased their own individual styles, and in the end like any sport it was down to who held their nerve and made as little mistakes as possible. There was tension throughout everyone’s routine but in the end Jamie was able to qualify to the second round, while ten athletes were finished and their hopes of qualifying were dashed.

Jamie’s three minutes saw him perform a 19 move combination on the high bar in his first routine, followed by a static set on the parallel bars and a planche routine on the floor. This would be the start of what would follow as Jamie relied on his statics throughout the competition. In the end he performed well enough to qualify for the second round.

Second Round

The second round was a 1v1 Battle format. Each athlete was given two rounds and each round lasted one minute thirty seconds.

Jamie was drawn against Rico Mesa, a name a lot of people in Ireland will be familiar with as Rico has been in Ireland before as a judge at competitions in the Irish Calisthenics Academy.

Rico had only been given four days notice that he was in the competition so he didn’t have a huge amount of time to prepare for this, but he is a phenomenal athlete and pushed Jamie all the way. Rico is very much an athlete that excites a crowd and is a difficult opponent because he is very unpredictable, you never know what crazy move he might throw out on the day!

There is huge respect for Rico in the calisthenics community and the Irish one in particular, so it was a nice battle between him and Jamie and both showed each other respect and admiration throughout.

One minute and thirty seconds for two rounds is a really difficult test of endurance, particularly for calisthenics and so both Jamie and Rico had to perform as strongly as they could, and in the end the victory went to Jamie. Looking back we think this was mainly due to his strength in static holds and planche in particular.

Jamie had made it to the final five.

Final

The final consisted of the five winners from the 1v1 battles. This was structured so that each athlete performed one minute rounds three times.

At this stage it comes down to endurance and mental fatigue. Throughout the competition a lot of it came down to who held their nerves the best. In warm ups people were throwing crazy moves and then when it came to the actual competition they were missing basic 360s. So by the time the final came around for the final five athletes it got to a stage were they were really conscious of not failing anything.

At this stage, and looking back on performance analysis by our coach Aaron Fitzpatrick, Jamie really relied on his static strength. By the final round he was still able to perform full planche nine times overall, and his statics remained at a really high level. However, it was his dynamics that began to slow down. This just indicates to us something we need to work on for the next competition. Other athletes go the other way, statics die down and dynamics take over. When it gets to this stage it just highlights where an athletes strengths are, or where they consider their strengths to be, because it is such a mental game at this point.

This is when judges begin to have a seriously tough decision, because they know for these final five how much it means to get to that place on the podium for each athlete.

Again Jamie performed consistently throughout with his static holds, again in particular with planche - this was held nine times overall in these final three rounds. This was the move that helped him stand out and earn a place on the podium.

When the decision was made and there was a tie announced for fourth and fifth, there was that moment of elation and realisation of what had just happened. Jamie had placed in the top three. We were going to the World Cup. We had to remain calm until the names were actually called and then it was just pure elation.

An amazing achievement for us as a club, and for everyone involved in the calisthenics community all across Ireland. This represents the most exciting period for Calisthenics in Ireland and we can’t wait to continue to see the development of the sport across the country and where this journey takes us.

Next Stop Hong Kong!

Highlight Video below edited by the excellent Rutger Franke:

For anyone interested in partnership with us and becoming involved in our sport at the most exciting stage of it’s development we have sponsorship packages available in the build up to the World Cup Final in Hong Kong. We have different packages tailored towards business and fitness facilities. Please check the link below or for other collaboration projects please email us: info@barmonkeycalisthenics.com

Bar Monkey Sponsorship

August Update

Hi guys,

I hope you are all having a great summer!

This is just a quick update going out to let you all know about our plans for the summer and carrying on into September.

If you have any questions on the following just let us know.

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SUMMER CAMPS

We have had a great time on our Summer Camps!

We now only have FIVE places remaining for the rest of the summer, this is for Week Six August 6th - 9th so if you are interested in signing up please do so now as this is the last week with availability!

Summer Camp Registration Form

We have had a great few weeks, I have been delighted personally with the turnout and engagement each week. Our groups have really taken to the bars as you would expect and it has also been great to see a lot of new faces and the interaction between all groups. We look forward to seeing everyone else over the rest of the summer!

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SEPTEMBER CLASSES

Just to clarify as people have been asking about our classes for September. People who are already registered with us do not need to worry about their place. You are already registered and everyone will just come back to the class they were in as normal - unless we have spoken about moving etc.

For anyone who has just joined over the summer and you are looking to register for September we will be releasing our registration forms mid way through August. It has been great to see the response from new participants over the summer and we are delighted to see that people are looking to continue learning with us.
In the next week or so we will be sending another email and this will have the registration form for classes in September*.

*If you are already a member, I.E in the classes before the summer break, you do not need to re-register.

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PARENTS GUIDE

This is also just to inform everyone involved that in September we will be sending all of you a guidebook that will give specific information with regards to the class your child is in.

This guidebook will specifically show you what we are working at each stage or class so that you can see what we are trying to develop with each member of our club. I think this will be really useful and give you all, hopefully, a slightly better understanding of the sport and that you can see what we are trying to develop at each stage and show you our pathway towards developing each person in the sport.

As always if anyone has any questions on the above please just let us know.

Thanks,
Jamie

Principles around Athlete Development

Hey guys,

With the introduction of our FUNdamentals Coaching Programme this year we have started having discussions with coaches across the country around the concept of Athlete Development.

After this I thought it would be relevant to showcase our principles around this concept and the idea of assessment.

Within our club we have different stages of our Athlete Development Pathway. We have our structure of classes the following way:

-        FUNdamentals

-        Learning to Train

-        Training to Train

-        Training to Compete

-        Training to Win

-        Retention

In other terms they look like this:

-        4-6 Programme

-        7-10 Junior Calisthenics Programme

-        11-14 Teen Programme

-        Level 2 Group

-        Competition Group

-        Adult Programme

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While there are age groups within this structure, after having this discussion with coaches I think it is important to note that age is not the only barometer of assessment or deciding what group a person should go in. Age does not define where an athlete or young child is on their journey or what stage of this pathway they are on. We all develop at different rates and we are all unique. We all also have different aims whether young or adult around physical training. Some kids want to be world champions, others want to have fun with their friends.

What I think as coaches and also parents we need to understand is that somebody should not just be assessed by their age. Age is only one aspect to look at when potentially assessing an athlete or young person.

When we are looking at a child and deciding what class they should potentially go into yes the first thing a parent might do is look for the age group that suits their child and place them into that class. That is fine and completely understandable and logical. This might be how we initially group our kids, but what is important as coaches to then look at is the athlete’s development overall.

So what do we mean by this?

Calisthenics Athlete

When we begin to look at a child and deciding what stage of the pathway they are on, or what is most suitable to their needs, we are not just looking at their physical development or age.

There are a huge amount of variables that need to be taken into consideration:

Physical

Physically are they at the right stage of development to be considered to move up into the next stage of our development pathway?

In the examples we give for our class we have our FUNdamentals Assessment Chart in our 4-6 groups and our Levels 1-3 Movement Charts in our 7-10 groups.

Can they complete these movements? If they can, does age play a part in ticking this aspect off? Not really. A six year old could tick everything off on the FUNdamentals Chart, even five potentially. Would it make sense to move them? Again, potentially depending on other aspects that are not just physical. Another example would be a twelve year old that potentially can’t tick off everything on the FUNdamentals Chart. If they can’t does it make sense to place them in our FUNdamentals Programme? Physically? Yes. Socially? No. This is why physical development is not our only gauge for assessment or athlete development.

Emotional

Emotional development. If we are trying to actually help the development of a child or young athlete then we are not just looking at physical components when it comes to our programmes.

As mentioned, a five year old may tick off every movement on our FUNdamentals chart, but socially would it benefit them to interact with an older group who are potentially physically stronger. If they are currently in a group that they have a lot of confidence in and good social interaction does it make sense to take them out of that environment where the other group are potentially more physically capable and we risk losing the confidence we have worked hard to build up. In our experience through that short sighted way of thinking we have lost kids from our own programmes.

Under the emotional heading when we are looking at athlete assessment is probably the most significant. There are a huge amount of variables under that heading that we consider when placing a child in a certain stage of our pathway.

Confidence – Building or losing?

Will moving them into another group or the next stage of the pathway help build their confidence up or is it risking losing confidence? This is the first question we have to look at and answer before we consider it. They may be ready physically but if the answer to this is no then there is no reason to move them because in our experience this will not keep them in the sport long-term. It destabilises them and causes them to regress emotionally, and this is the opposite of what we are trying to develop with anyone involved in our club or any athlete in our sport.

If we are not going to develop their confidence by moving them, then why do it?

I probably keep someone in a certain group for longer but that is for this reason. I am in no rush to move them up just for the sake of it. If someone has turned seven but does not want to move up yet, what am I gaining by pushing them into an entirely new group of people and creating uncertainty for them? I am not building confidence in an athlete, I am losing it. Age is not the determining factor when we move people into certain groups, the idea of building or losing confidence is one of the biggest and definitely more important than their age.

On the flip side to that, you can have someone who is technically five or six and emotionally ready to move into the next stage of development. In my opinion it is about us developing a positive relationship with each individual so that we understand whether they are emotionally ready to move into another group or not.

Cognitive

From a cognitive understanding we need to look at whether socially they would interact well with another group or not. We need to look at their social maturity and whether or not it will benefit them moving into another group. Their developmental age from a social maturity aspect can be very different to their relative age. All parents have heard or said this before about certain kids becoming teenagers before they actually are for example!

For us this is an important aspect to gauge. We need to be able to assess and understand if socially they will interact well with another group and enjoy being part of that group. Will they be able to engage in conversation with the next group and have fun with them, or will they be a bit lost? It’s a huge aspect of deciding whether or not a child should stay where they are or be moved.

This is why as part of our club it is so important that we get to know the kids and everyone involved. What do they like, what are their interests outside of the club? This transpires when they interact with other kids. We need to ensure for their sake that they won’t be lost when moving into another group.

An example could be that a child at six has a huge interest in Pokémon. However if we moved them up into a group predominantly full of 9 year olds what they are interested in and talk about could be completely different. Then they have a completely different experience of our club in that group because they can’t relate to others like they could previously. This is such an important aspect to consider. As we have already said, it is not just about physical skills.

Calisthenics Athlete

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As coaches we have to ensure that all these things link together. If we can answer yes to all of the questions above only then can we actually consider moving someone up to another group. If one aspect doesn’t link up, then from our point of view it doesn’t make sense to move them.

This is all part of our long term athlete development plan. We are taking a long term view of each athlete and we have the specific aim of each person becoming physically literate and active for life. I think this can only happen if there is a structured and long term view at we how we develop each person that comes into our club and not looking short term.

As always feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

Jamie