Vladimir Koprivica is a professor of sports training theory at the Serbian and Montenegro Basketball Academy in Belgrade. He has worked as a conditioning coach for several men’s and women’s top division basketball teams in his country.
JS: Zdravo Professor Koprivica. I would first like to say that it is an honor for me to have the opportunity to personally receive and share your insights with the viewers of Elite Fitness Systems and Power Development, Inc. It is a privilege to have gained the acquaintance of both you and Mladen. I look forward to future correspondence with you.
Professor, I realize that the types of questions I am going to ask you could easily prompt the makings of a textbook. So, please be as brief or as detailed as you wish with your responses.
Professor VK: Thank you for the kind words, Mr. Smith. It should always be kept in mind that both science and practice are born in discussion, which means that we are all learning from each other. We are more similar in what we don’t know than we are different in what we know. And for this very reason, we should be happy for every encounter or meeting, including this one over the internet.
JS: I appreciate the thoughtful response, professor. Would you please share a brief history of your coaching and academic experiences?
Profesor VK: I am part of the faculty of physical culture in Belgrade. At the same school, I completed my graduate studies with the highest grades (to praise myself a little) and defended my master thesis. Later on, I finished my doctoral studies by defending a doctoral thesis titled “Structural characteristics of 11–15-year-old basketball players” and became a teacher in the theory of sport training department. I was lucky to become the assistant of Professor Petrović, a great teacher and very successful athletics coach. Later, I went on to a specialization in Russia with Professor L.P. Matveyev, who is proclaimed as the scientist who has had the biggest influence on sport development in the twentieth century. They—Petrović and Matveyev—are my practical and scientific role models. Theoretically and practically, outside of faculty responsibilities, I am most devoted to basketball (over 25 years of experience). I have worked with all age categories, from juvenile to senior representations. The teams that I coached as a conditioning coach had a large number of national championships, cup competitions, and medals on international levels. Additionally, I have worked on educating the coaching staff.
JS: Your experiences and accomplishments are truly inspirational, professor. I understand that your country was not part of the former Soviet-bloc. However, have any aspects of the multi-year process of training athletes changed in your country since the fall of the Soviet Union?
Professor VK: The world is, along with large differences, unique, and as a result of that, all the positive and negative influences are indivertible. The USSR had a very big, coordinated, expensive, and very successful system of training. Their multi-year-oriented preparation system gave results, so it was copied by other countries, especially those countries that were in a common economic, political, and military block. Our country (former Yugoslavia) wasn’t in that block, but we established a system of training that was partly influenced by Russia’s. We used positive experiences from others, and we also had our own original solutions. This was closely related to our basketball and other sport games. Decades before civilian war and together with Italy, we were the most successful in the world in sport games. War and the breakdown of our country brought many negative changes in all former republics (now countries/states). Every break of continuity is bad, and the recovery always lasts very long. The process of once again establishing the system is in progress, but now it is very evident that we have permanently lost many things.
JS: Unfortunately, the majority of coaches and sport systems in the United States have failed to adopt these highly successful components of the Soviet training model. Furthermore, here in the United States, many coaches and parents make the mistake of early specialization of their young, school-age athletes. The mistake of early sport-specialization is further compounded by a lack of attention paid to the development of elementary motor forms (general physical preparedness). What words of advice can you share with such coaches and parents?
Professor VK: The theoretical basis for this problem is very clear—training and competitions should be in unity with the bio-psycho-social development of youths, and the groundwork or fundamentals for later sport success should be developed. The goal of youth preparations should be in achieving great results during the period of their career when the best results are achieved. Forced (specialized) work, sadly, gives results quickly, but it also limits the athlete in his or her development. It is very important to know the definition of early specialization. Early specialization is NOT a child of seven years taking a tennis racquet or ball in his hands. What the child does with that tennis racquet or ball is more important. Training contents should be miscellaneous and aligned so it is appropriate for the child’s age and achieved level of skill. Learning the motor alphabet is the first thing that should be done. Early specialization is when young athletes, poorly prepared and educated, undergo very specialized and very intensive training and enter a large number of competitions. The outcomes and results are sport but also biological and psycho-social in nature. Old pedagogues have said that it is not important what the child does with the ball, but what the ball does with the child.
JS: I hope that the coaches and parents who are reading this interview pay special attention to your words, professor.
What types of indicators do you use for determining when a young athlete is sufficiently prepared for specialized training for a particular sport? I know that you have great experience working with basketball players. Perhaps you could answer the question considering the sport of basketball.
Professor VK: I believe that for this very question there are no clear answers for all cases. If they existed, they would be certainly available to everybody. The development of each individual requires different paths. Criteria can be general (level of biological, psychological, and social development), special (e.g. technical-tactical preparedness), and individual (e.g. the force of knee extensors). All the criteria must be taken into consideration for every individual case. Besides that, every sport branch has its own specificity. For boys and girls, there are differences in development and speed of maturation, and these differences are not always in unity with their chronological age. According to this, every practical problem of our profession can be seen in each athlete, so it is almost impossible to have a universal rule.
In basketball and in the youngest age groups, we greatly emphasize the early development of sport skills, both general and specific. Loads that are in the lactate zone of intensity are used to a greater degree only after the age of 15 when the body develops required conditions. During that time, more and more emphasis is placed on the training of “in the game” situations and competitions. It is not good to have specialized training without mastering the basic skills and acquiring adequate abilities first. Competitions with insufficiently prepared and educated athletes and the goal of achieving only results have no meaning. They (competitions) must be a function of preparation for later results.
JS: Professor, we know that different sporting disciplines (and even positional requirements for the same sport) require the development of varying abilities. How does your criterion vary regarding different sports for determining when a youth is sufficiently prepared for specialized training?
Professor VK: If I could recommend something, it would be constant monitoring of training effects. It is very important that we, in the beginning, use the most basic exercises and then progress to more complex ones. The most effective means should not be used too early! When some training means do not bring any training effects for the athlete, new, more complex and more demanding means should be used. At the top of their career, athletes must use extreme, “shocking” means if they wish to progress even more. In sport branches where the athlete uses sport implements (i.e. tennis, table tennis, skiing, skating, games with a ball, etc.), specific training should start very early. However, this is about skill training—certainly not large loads! On the other side, there are endurance-type sport branches, in which we take a long time to introduce athletes to “the rush” period for results. This is all in the unity with biological development and motor development characteristics.
JS: Professor, you may be distressed to know that complex exercises such as barbell snatches and clean and jerks are routinely introduced into the training of western athletes, who lack the supporting motor forms to safely and effectively perform the lifts. Furthermore, perhaps more coaches and physical educators here in the United States would observe additional training effects if the majority of physical activity wasn’t limited to sport practice and competition.
Professor, for the last question of this interview, I would like to address the development of reaction speed and speed-strength in young athletes. Considering that the nervous system of pre-adolescent youths is underdeveloped and largely influenced by the types of activities the youths are exposed to prior to puberty, would you please discuss what types of activities are most appropriate and effective for developing reaction speed and speed-strength in athletes who fall in this stage of physical development?
Professor VK: The research done in our domain shows that we cannot largely influence reaction speed because it is very genetically determined. However, with pre-adolescents, we should spent most of our time developing coordination and sport skill acquisition. One who doesn’t use this period cannot make up for it later. Regarding strength, it is hard to give a short answer. For the youngest athletes, this represents various types of games including a variety of different jumps, ball or other objects throws, and short sprints with change of direction all in different situations. In this very period, the game is the basic method and means of development.
We are at the end of one mega project, which I coordinate and in which we measured the physical abilities and physical development of the same children from their seventh year through their fifteenth year. I hope that the data will be very valuable and bring some answers.
JS: So many thanks for sharing your insights, professor. Your time and thoughts are greatly appreciated. I look forward to our next exchange.
Special thanks to Mladen Jovanovic for taking the time and interest to translate my words and the professor’s words for each other and for fostering the international correspondence, which I have been fortunate to gain with him and Professor Koprivica.
James Smith is a student of Soviet and Eastern Bloc training methodologies and is engaged in the constant pursuit to further his own physical conditioning and coaching abilities. He currently works with athletes at West Valley High School (CA). He has worked with football, track and field, and wrestling as well as MMA, US Navy SEALs, US Army Special Forces Trainees, US Navy Divers, Australian SAS trainees, and Federal Air Marshals. He is the founder of Power Development Inc. (http://www.powerdevelopmentinc.com/)
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