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Super pumped to have Ken Cools coming to Regina to put on an elite BMX clinic this spring. Don't miss out only 30 spots available.
Ken Cools
Intro:
I have been coaching BMX for most of my life, my most recent role as High Performance BMX Head Coach for Cycling Canada. My coaching experience and proven track record as both a High Performance and development BMX Coach allows me to train and teach any athlete at any level of development. This can be attributed to my experience that has been developed since I began my coaching career in 1994. Since beginning my career as an international coach I have worked with and continue to develop both World and Olympic Champions. In my coaching career I have coached 5 UCI Elite World Champions, over 40 challenge World Champions, 5 ABA (American Bicycle Association) Pro Champions and a silver medalist at the 2012 London Olympics (Sarah Walker).
CampCools training camps began in 1994 and have continually taught camps and clinics thru the entire span of that time. Camps have been run all over Canada and the USA as well as New Zealand under the CampCools banner. During the years of 2000-2005 I lived in California USA and became the head trainer and partner of “SuperCamp” which is a USA based coaching company. The average of 300 days a year on the road doing camps and races during my time with SuperCamp allowed me to fine tune my skills of coaching and organization of camps.
The trainers that assist me on my camps all have been seasoned racers with plenty of experience to back up their knowledge and a few of them have been working with me for over 15 years. This has allowed me train the trainers on how to be great coaches, give constructive feedback and how to mentally kick start the kids. The level of coaches that my camps have produced is one of the areas I am the proudest.
· ChPC – Chartered Professional Coach thru Coaches of Canada
· NCCP Level 4 Coaching Certification-highest possible achievement
· Health Coach – Institute of Integrative Nutrition
Camp Layout:
There is always a wide range of ages (4-65) and skill levels (beginner to Elite) that attend each camp and we make sure to cover and teach all skill sets for each level and push each individual athletes according to their own ability.
The speeches that are given on all major areas of the race track have been developed over the years to a point where the progression of the skills taught will be a reflection of the abilities of those kids in attendance. Areas that will be taught on the track are:
· Gates
· Pumping
· Manualing (single, double, nose, multiple)
· Jumping
· Corners (If track has good turns)
· Race lines and tactical approach
A number of subjects will also be covered off the track, which will have a psychological component to them. Areas covered are:
· Self believe and Self confidence
· Pre-race routine
· Goal Setting
· Race Day Prep
Coaches Camp:
In 2008 I began to officially hold “Coaching Camps” that were specifically designed and targeted toward expert coaches, new coaches and parents who wanted to learn more about the technical side of the sport. There was great positive feedback on these courses and 10 of these were held each year while based out of New Zealand and I would like to introduce them here into North America.
The coach’s camp is typically taught the same way I would teach a weekend camp for kids. We would start with a jump and go over all different skill sets to use (i.e. pump, manual, jump…) but in much greater depth and detail. The group has a greater ability to retain information compared to the kids so the information given is not just how to do it, but why you should and should not do certain components of each skill so that the audience learns and gets a full understanding of each stage.
Progression will be made from teaching the audience each skill to how to teach each of these skills to athletes and what the best process of giving information is. Working on the fundamentals of each skill and then adding the specific elements to increase the difficulty will have detailed explanation while at the same time have a trainer giving demonstration.
During these camps I will have the ability to help build a specific tool kit of training sessions to use for your track. Each BMX course is different and has certain elements that make it unique to itself, after spending a day on the course I will be able to highlight the areas that should be worked, how often and what drills and games that can be done to best make use of what you have. Together with the local coaches I can help establish what the goals of the club and for those athletes in the coaching program may be for the year.
These courses generally run 3-3.5 hours depending on the depth of questions in the group. A more knowledgeable group will need less time on the fundamentals and more on specific topics that a more experienced coach would be interested in, in this case we may run longer.
Trainers:
I will be the head trainer at every camp that is put on and will be in attendance 100% of the time. In the past I have tried to have a ratio of (1 trainer: 7 athletes) at the camps and in general this works great until a certain point. My opinion is that when there are less trainers they actually work better and are more engaged with the athletes in attendance as too many trainers sometimes takes away from the kids on the track. Thus I will be running with a smaller group of trainers on the larger camps as it has been proven to show the kids get more out of the camp.
The trainers that I use for my camps are all currently or have in the past raced at a very high level but more importantly they have the ability to share their knowledge with other rides. Just because you can ride does not necessarily mean you can help others ride and the trainers that I use as my primary assistants are great at both, especially the coaching aspect.