Peak Performance Summit draws Joburg coaches (Video)
High performance was in the spotlight at the recent Peak Performance Summit hosted at Wits, where a number of local schools made an appearance.
University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Sport hosted its third annual Peak Performance Summit in earnest on June 5 and 6 at the university’s far west campus in Braamfontein.
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Representatives from several local schools were in attendance.
Headlining the discussions on day one was the seasoned Australian professional strength and conditioning (S&C) coach, Ashley Jones, who drew open the curtains with his discussion on developing culture in the weight room.
Referencing this culture, Jones highlighted the length of time S&C coaches spend with players and said this formed as a basis from which buy-in and trust can be expedited from players.
He noted that this time also offers a good opportunity for the said players to fully imbibe the culture of the organisation or team from an S&C perspective.
Following this, a panel discussion led by former head of Wits Sport Adrian Carter invited the institution’s first team rugby head coach, Hugo van As, director of the Morningside Sports Medicine Unit Dr Jon Patricios, physiotherapist Godfrey Sepuru as well as Jones to engage in a high-level exploratory dialogue.
High performance (HP) coach Rob Yates, who was another speaker at the summit, summarily discussed his 12 months’ worth of HP sports coaching in South Africa, what he’s been able to identify as some of the ‘common high-performance coaching problems’ within this space, and the steps that should be taken to overcome them.
One of the attendees at the event, Wits Tang Soo Do coach master Gregory Hart said the event sessions were informative and lived up to expectation.
“I’m glad to see the summit has grown substantially, both in terms of the level of talkers and the number of participants,” said Hart.
“It has been mind-blowing in that we’ve had an exceptional S&C coach, whose had a lot of experience in the rugby circles and had a lot to offer. The panel talk in itself gave me a good idea of what goes on behind closed doors at top level coaching discussions, and its good to get all those different perspectives.”
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