IWF Coaching Symposium in Beijing
In December 2019 an IWF Coaching Symposium was successfully held in the Chinese National Weightlifting Training Center in Beijing, China. The aim of the two days symposium was mainly to discuss how technology can contribute to weightlifting training and performance and of course to have a look at the Chinese Weightlifting System.
The President of the Chinese Weightlifting Association, Mr ZHOU Jingiang on behalf of the hosts opened the symposium. He mentioned that there are several aspects why Chinese weightlifters are among the bests, such as young-athlete-cultivation system, that starts from school-age children until top athletes as a long-term sport development. Also training philosophy and training methods inherited by generation to generation is a key point and of course, there is an emphasis on the anti-doping work.
As for the preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Mr ZHOU highlighted that Chinese National Weightlifting Team has been fully supported in many aspects of physical training, advanced technology, injury prevention and treatment, team construction which play an important role to achieve their goals in Japan.
Participants, including Mr Mahmoud MAHGOUB, IWF Coaching and Research Committee Chair, Ms Karoliina LUNDAHL, CRC Deputy Chair, and other IWF Committee Members listened attentively the presentations primarily by Chinese experts. On the first day, the emphasis was on technology, showing two different methods of how to use technology to improve the training. Tracking the bar with a sensor and infrared camera and a mobile app while the other one uses 2 cameras and software, therefore, a computer is needed. Both analyzing systems can be very useful for coaches and athletes to correct weightlifting techniques.
In the next sessions, presentations were given by co-worker of Scientific Research team of Chinese Weightlifting Team, colleagues from Zhen-Ao Company, Performance coach of the Chinese team and expert from CHINADA.
In the afternoon of the second day, after the presentations and interactive and interesting discussions, participants had the possibility to visit the high-tech equipped facilities that support Chinese Weightlifting Team and saw how big role is played by science, technology, rehabilitation and prevention not only on the training itself.
The participants’ feedback was very good, they agreed that the two days were useful, especially to share their opinions. Timea HORVATH, IWF Development and Education Manager on behalf of IWF expressed her thanks to the Chinese Weightlifting Association to host this Symposium.