National hockey team starts preparations for European Championships
The Belgian hockey season has almost come to an end. Only the play off finals have to be played between Racing and Dragons. The players of the Belgian national team will soon start the preparations for the European Championships in Mönchengaldbach (Germany). The national team will try to reach at least the semi-finals, which allows them to go to the 2012 Olympics. (more…)
AZ Alkmaar qualifies for the Europa League
On the last match day of the Dutch football competition, AZ secured the fourth place in the Eredivisie and the corresponding qualification for the Europa League.
Despite the defeat against F.C. Utrecht, the qualification was a fact since final competitor FC Groningen didn’t manage to win against PSV (0-0).
Maarten Martens, the Belgian midfielder, attributes this result after a long season to the whole team. During the season coach Gert-Jan verbeeck managed to form a team with this performance as the result.
TopSportsLab wants to congratulate AZ Alkmaar with their season! Furthermore we want to wish them good luck with the preparations for next season!
TopSportsLab Tested Beerschot AC in their preparation for next season
Since the current season is finished for Belgian first division team Germinal Beerschot, the first preparations for next season are been made. Therefore Germinal Beerschot asked TopSportsLab to develop and execute an individual physical and injury prevention screening.
Under the supervision of the TopSportsLab crew, players had to execute an extensive series of tests. Based on the test results the staff will receive specific performance and risk profiles of the different players.
The goal is to optimize the individual preparation programs for next season and to enable the staff to bring down the number of injuries.
We wish Germinal Beerschot a good preparation for next season!
You can find some images of the screening on Facebook.
Superfly Spotlight : Eden Hazard
Nike Football just launched a brand new world wide campaign: Who is Superfly? Eden Hazard shows his skills in the new nike ad.
TopSportLab helped out with the choreography of the clip.
Speed. Skill. Close Control. Eden Hazard joins the Superfly elite the day before completing his 100th league game.
The spotlight is on him. Can he command it? (more…)
First International Sports Congress great succes
The first International Sports Congress was a great success. More than 230 people were present. In the following part we have a brief summary of the speakers and their topics.
The presentations will be online in the next few days.
You can find some photos at the bottom of this page, a complete album can be found on Facebook.
TopSportsLab signs AZ Alkmaar
Big news at the beginning of the new year! During the first half of the season we had several meetings with the people of AZ Alkmaar. In December AZ decided to partner up with Topsportlab. (more…)
Clinic 2 also a great success!
After the successful clinic of Dec. 13, the subscriptions for the second edition proved to be an even greater success. More than 300 people were present. Due to the large turnout, a different location was chosen. In stead of the Provinciehuis, the auditory 1.54 in College De Valk was chosen to host this event. The theme of this second clinic:”Integration of the physical component in the training” was clearly appreciated. The two keynote speakers were Jan Van Winckel and Jacques Borlée.
Jan Van Winckel, physical coach at Club Brugge, gave the first session. His presentation, “periodisation: Fail to plan – plan to fail” (Stone, 1999), was a strong scientific exposition about the subject ‘periodisation’. The presentation was built around the central question ‘what is really proved by scientific research’. It soon became clear that everyone practices periodisation in one way or another but that the idea about an ideal periodisation method is a utopia. Jan elaborated more on the theoretical background but underlined the use of intuitive knowledge, often good to take into account when preparing periodisation schemes. It is important to preserve and maintain sufficient variety when training the different motor abilities.
Testing the national youth selections in Tubeke
The first week of 2011 was already a very busy week with the second screening round of the national youth selections. More than 100 players faced the cold on the 3th and 4th of january at the National football center in Tubeke.
As with the first testing in august the players of the U16, U17, U18 and U19 underwent a series of tests in the context of injury prevention and performance prediction.
This will give the staff the opportunity to analyze the progress of their players. In cooperation withTopsportlab, all the data will be analyzed and discussed, when necessary the individual programs will be adjusted.
Rehab and injury prevention in football today.
After our succesful first clinic of the new season we have uploaded the three presentations of our keynote speakers.
Dr. Kristof Sas: Medical approach within R.S.C.A how to integrate injury prevention and rehabilitation in a loaded agenda
Drs. Steven Probst: The role of the coach in preventing injuries
Mr. Raymond de Jong: Football specific prevention and rehabilitation
Topsportlab & OHL will work together for a new research project
The professional cooperation between football team Oud-Heverlee Leuven (OHL) and Topsportlab proves to be very successful. OHL, currently in the running for the title in second division, has been working closely together with Topsportlab for the last few years.
In light of Topsportlab’s innovation project ‘Performance prediction in professional football‘ OHL agreed to participate. This innovation project is supported by the Flemish government through IWT, the Agency for innovation in science and technology . The following two years Topsportlab will monitor and test 22 talents in the OHL youth academy. (more…)