The training staff of “Good Fellows” who are active in Kakegawa City will guide active Olympic athletes.
In April, the Japanese-style baseball team “Good Fellows” for elementary school students started activities in Kakegawa City, Shizuoka. The representative of the team, who is in charge of conditioning training, is a female coach who has been teaching female high school athletes who participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics since childhood. Looking to the future of children, the team has a practice menu to improve basic physical strength and athletic ability that will lead to improvement of baseball skills. The video also introduces training for improving core and strength, which was also adopted by the Olympic athletes.
9 am. Goodfellows practice begins. The activity is 3 hours until noon, twice on Saturdays and Sundays. While I have less time than other baseball teams, I spend more time training without using baseball equipment. In order to acquire baseball skills, it is necessary to improve basic physical strength and athletic ability, and this ability will be extended to the junior generation.
Chiyoko Okada, Conditioning Coach of Good Fellows, is a National Strength & Conditioning Association certified personal trainer and is in charge of training on the team. She has also served as a conditioning coach at a high school baseball championship, and she has experience teaching a wide range of ages, from children to professionals, in addition to baseball. She has been in charge of the personal trainer for snowboarder Tsubaki Miki (Snowboard Alpine), an active high school girl who participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics, for about eight years.
“The growth spurt begins in the upper grades of elementary school. It is important to maintain flexibility and train to improve athletic ability during this period.”
Mr. Okada focuses on training to increase the variation of stretching and movement. In elementary school, he is more important than honing his baseball skills. In the training, we teach how to use the body to generate maximum power without putting a burden on the biased part. Mr. Okada says, “Since I was in elementary school, I want to establish the idea of conditioning to prevent injuries through training, to be compatible with practice, and to enjoy a longer player life.”
