Following my work with the Bracknell Bees during the previous season, I continued supporting the team with their fitness and conditioning as Gareth Cox took over as head coach.
This old newspaper feature, “Fitness the key for Bees”, announced the renewal of the club’s partnership with my business, JW Training, alongside the Peak Fitness Health Club (The gym I started at when I was just 18 years old!).
For me, it represented another step in developing the strength and conditioning side of my coaching career.
Preparing players before the season starts
One of the things Gareth and I agreed on was that physical preparation shouldn’t begin a couple of weeks before the first game.
Players needed to arrive at the start of the season already capable of dealing with the demands of competitive ice hockey.
As I said at the time:
“He believes, as I do, that players should be in match shape at the start of the season, not just hitting the gym two weeks before.”
That sounds obvious now, but it was an important principle in how I wanted to work with athletes.
Strength and conditioning should be part of the preparation process, not something added at the last minute.
An individual approach to conditioning
Another important part of the work was recognising that every player had different requirements.
Rather than simply giving the entire squad the same workout, the aim was to look at individual needs and then build appropriate exercise, fitness and dietary strategies around them.
The previous season had already given me the opportunity to work directly with players and see how they responded to more individualised training.
The newspaper reported that the players had responded positively to both my dietary advice and individual training programmes, while head coach Gareth Cox highlighted how impressed he was with their commitment to getting into good condition ahead of the new season.
That individual approach has remained an important part of how I coach ever since.
Two people can play the same sport and still require very different things from their training depending on their position, strengths, weaknesses, injury history and physical development.
Working as part of the wider support team
The article also highlighted something else that became increasingly important as my coaching developed – working alongside other professionals.
My role complemented the work of club physio Sharon Brogden, with the different parts of the support team considering what each player needed and building appropriate plans around them.
Strength and conditioning doesn’t exist in isolation.
For an athlete, training needs to sit alongside technical practice, competition, recovery, injury management and everything else they’re being asked to do.
Learning how my role fitted into that bigger picture was valuable experience relatively early in my career.
Continuing the relationship with the Bees
I’d stayed in contact with the club throughout the previous year, discussing how we could continue developing the support available to the players and help them reach their physical peak more effectively.
When Gareth took over as head coach, it was encouraging to find that we had very similar ideas about preparation and the standards expected from the players.
Looking back now, these seasons with the Bracknell Bees were an important part of my early development as a coach.
I was able to combine my own experience from years of playing the sport with an increasingly structured understanding of strength, conditioning, nutrition and individual programme design.
More than 15 years later, many of the principles are still familiar: prepare properly, understand the individual, work alongside the wider support team and make sure the training has a clear purpose.
It’s another small piece of the journey that eventually became more than 20 years working across personal training, health and performance.
Joseph Webb.
