Jan Olbrecth back in Knoxville in April 2017

Information about last year's Clinic is below

Time and Place 2016

Jan Olbrecht will be back in Knoxvile on May 2 and 3, 2016. The University of Tennessee and Mark Kredich host the second School of Thought Swim Clinic. This clinic features Jan Olbrecht along with Vern Gambetta, Erik Vendt, Nick Folker and Sean Hutchison.

Application

See application for Clinic

Participants

Jan Olbrecht

Jan is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts in the application of lactate testing to training design. His book “The Science of Winning” has become one of the most influential books written on training theory for swimming and is used by coaches of several different sports. Since the publication of the book 20 years ago, Olbrecht’s theories have been further validated on thousands of high level athletes who he has monitored over the years. Many of these athletes have been extremely successful and have won hundreds of World Championship and Olympic medals. It total Jan has advised athletes who have won over 500 Olympic, World Championship, European Championship and Commonwealth Championship medals. Jan spoke at U. of Tennesse last March.

Jan speaks to the coaches during a session
on the training effects of various swim exercises
at 2015 clinic.

They were planning training exercises based on this chart from the Science of Winning.

For more information on Jan from our website

See our page on The Science of Winning. Jan discussed how he works with the Dutch Swim Team and other swim coaches. The Dutch team just broke several world records at the Doha Short Course World Championships last December and so did some of France's top swimmers who also work with Jan. He is also working with Jacco Verhaeren and several Australian swimmers. Swimmers who have worked with Jan have won 53 Olympic medals and 175 medals in World long course and short course championships. They have also won over 350 medals in European championships.

Age Group swimmer to World Champion triathlete - Jan also wrote our triathlon site which we published in 1998 after Luc van Lierde set the world records in the Ironman at Kona and then ran the fastest Ironman in history at 7:50:27. Jan had first met Luc as an age group swimmer, primarily a breaststroke swimmer. In about 8 years under Jan's guidance, Luc became one of the top triathletes of all time. Jan continued to work with Luc throughout his triathlon career and still works with him as Luc has become one of the top triathlon coaches in Europe.

This triathlon site published in 1998 is here. Several years later, Jan then wrote an outline for training and testing for the triathlon. This was to be a chapter in a book on lactate testing. This book was never published but most of his article became part of our main site on the triathlon. There are ideas from others in this site so not every thing on this site is Jan's. Click here for the main triathlon site.

Swim coaches who train triathletes or have swimmers who want to become triathletes may want to explore Jan's ideas on this. The terminology that Jan uses in his presentation on swimming will make the triathlon sites a little clearer.

Rowing Success as well - In 2002 Dutch rowing asked Jan to help them in their training. Since that time the Dutch have won 6 Olympic medals in rowing, one gold, 2 silver and three bronze. The rowers have also won 100 medals in world championships regattas.

Jan uses a unique model of energy metabolism developed at the University of Cologne when he was a graduate student. A computer program was developed for this model which allows him to measure both the aerobic and anaerobic capacity of an athlete. From this model, training programs are developed that help the athlete optimize performance in any event from as little as a 50 m freestyle or 20-24 seconds to an Ironman which is 8 hours or more.

Vern Gambetta

Vern is one of the most respected coaches in the world, and is considered to be the “Founding Father of Functional Training.” He has coached for over 40 years at all levels of competition and has authored over 100 articles and nine books on various aspects of training. He has worked at the highest level of many sports, including with the Chicago White Sox, the Chicago Bulls, the Tampa Bay Mutiny, USA Skiing, and many other national federations across several sports. He has helped the University of Tennessee develop a dryland program for its swimming program, and has worked with many of the best USA swimming clubs including Carmel, Dynamo, York YMCA, and the Sarasota Sharks. Vern is currently the Director of Gambetta Sports Training Systems.

Nick Folker

Nick is the Co-Founder of Bridge Athletic. Bridge harnesses the training systems of elite athletes via the BridgeAthletic app so that regardless of age, gender, body type, athletic ability, or workload, all will experience what few have been privy to. The most important element of Bridge is the workouts are customized specifically for each individual. Bridge Athletes have combined to earn 22 Olympic medals, with 50 Olympic athletes and multiple World Championship medals.

Erik Vendt

Known in the swimming world as a three time Olym-pian and winner of a gold and two silver medals, Erik has been working in the field of high performance athletic monitoring with a 3 year old company named WHOOP. WHOOP is a wrist-worn device tar-geted at elite athletes. Its software analytics platform offers athletes continuous data and information revolving around sleep, recovery, and strain. The mobile and web platforms allow for deeper insights, competition and group optimization. At WHOOP, they are creating a product that makes individuals perform at a high level through deeper understand-ing of their bodies and daily lives.

Sean Hutchison

Sean is one of the most forward thinking and accom-plished coaches in United States Swimming. Sean is so forward thinking that he moved out of the sport and is now heads up IKKOS, LLC. IKKOS applies ad-vances in neuroscience – neuroplasticity – to learning movement patterns. Sean will talk with coaches about what he’s learned from the fields of neuroscience and motor learning and how he sees these advances being applied to modern swim coaching.

Events

Monday, May 2

8:00 AM -‐ breakfast and introduction by Matt Kredich
8:30 AM –10:30 AM – Olbrecht Lecture 1: The use of Science to Optimize Training - Jan will discuss different training theories and periodization models, such as HIIT, USRPT, and others, and their effects on the qualities of capacity, power and performance.
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM - Vern Gambetta and Nick Folker – “Making Connections- Effective Dryland Training”
11:30 PM – 12:45 PM – lunch break
1:00 PM – 1:45 PM – Erik Vendt – Sleep & Recovery as a Predictor of Performance in NCAA D1 Collegiate Athletes - Races are won by hundredth’s of a second. Games are decided by less than a score or basket. What if you were able to accurately predict an athlete’s performance based upon reliable, consistent stream of metrics? Using WHOOP as the means to capture athlete data, we’ve begun to see strong correlations between sleep, recovery and athletic performances the following day.
2:00 – 3:30 PM -‐ Olbrecht Lecture 2 – The use of Science to Optimize Training Efficiency, Part 2- “Examples of Training Monitoring on Short and Long Term Performances- Case Studies” - Jan will discuss the monitoring and steering of the training of several world class swimmers and their performances over several time periods. For a discussion of steering, see our webpage on this concept.
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM – Sean Hutchison – Creating a “Human User’s Manual” - Sean will discuss using real science and data to raise an athlete's (or your own) level of understanding in how to control and focus emotion, movement, and performance through inputs which are becoming readily available.
Dinner Break
8:30 PM – Coaches Social

Tuesday, May 3

If more than 30 people sign-up, the clinic into two tracks (groups of 25-30), allowing each group to
participate in a three hour seminar with Jan Olbrecht and a unique learning experience with Sean Hutchinson, Nick Folker, and Vern Gambetta.

8:00 AM -‐ breakfast
8:30 AM – 11:30 AM – Track 1 Jan Olbrecht - Training Design Seminar- Evaluation of Exercises and Periodization Models
8:30 AM – 11:30 AM – Track 2 Vern Gambetta and Nick Folker Designing Integrated and effective Strength Training Programs - Sean Hutchinson - Strategies for Specifically Affecting Appropriate Change for Individual Athletes
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM – Lunch
12:30 PM –3:30 PM – Track 2 Jan Olbrecht - Training Design Seminar- Evaluation of Exercises and Periodization Models
12:30 PM –3:30 PM – Track 2 Vern Gambetta and Nick Folker Designing Integrated and effective Strength Training Programs - Sean Hutchinson - Strategies for Specifically Affecting Appropriate Change for Individual Athletes
4:00 PM – Clinic ends.

Application

See application for Clinic

Jan Olbrecth back in Knoxville in April 2017 Information about last year's Clinic is below

Time and Place 2016

Application

Participants

Jan Olbrecht

Vern Gambetta

Nick Folker

Erik Vendt

Sean Hutchison

Events

Monday, May 2

Tuesday, May 3

Application

Jan Olbrecth back in Knoxville in April 2017

Information about last year's Clinic is below