Alex Bailey

I have 6 years of coaching experience. Specializing in sport-specific athletic conditioning and focusing on traits such as endurance, agility, acceleration, and flexibility. I also help athletes improve on their fundamentals, which are one of the most important abilities to have in any sport. I began my coaching career as an assistant soccer coach at Walter Hays Elementary School. I served as a Development Coach for the Kenyon Men's Rugby Club. I have worked as a one-on-one swim coach at Decathlon Sports Club, as well as an independent off-season conditioning coach in the South bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, working with athletes in various sports including, basketball, soccer, softball, and rugby to prepare them to meet and exceed their goals for the coming season.

I attended high school in England, where I was a multi-sport varsity athlete for all four years. I represented my school playing Rugby, Soccer, Field Hockey, Tennis, Fencing, Cricket, and Javelin. Throughout my high school career, I was regularly acknowledged for being the most consistent player on the team; someone that coach could trust to put in any situation and maintain a high level of performance. My field hockey coach in freshman year told the team "consistency is the most valuable trait an athlete can have". I took these words to heart, and was able to succeed in many drastically different sports because I took time to study the game and develop my fundamentals.

In college I played rugby for Kenyon College in DIII. In my only year as a player, the team won the Pittsburgh invitational tournament. I also personally won the Ironman award at the end of the season for having the highest tackling percentage. At the beginning of the following season, I suffered a neck injury and a concussion. After that incident I became a development coach for the team, coaching players new to the game and those needing to improve fundamental skills such as passing and tackling. At this point I also began playing top division squash for the college as a reserve, but was called into the 9 man squad for the Navy Invitational in Annapolis and in a few other matches.

I have two types of sessions: skill oriented and conditioning oriented.

A skill session would look like this (examples given for a crossover skill session):
Begin with low paced warm up exercises involving the skill being trained (begin with low intensity ball handling exercises).
Move into a higher paced exercises focusing on the skill (focus on just the crossover, first at low speed then bringing it up to 100%).
Depending on the skill being trained, we may also run through several other exercises that help to insert the skill into regular play (setting out cones for the player to dribble towards, make the move at the cone and drive to the basket, or pull back for a jumper).

A conditioning session would look like this (examples given for a rugby conditioning session):
Begin with dynamic stretches and jogs to warm up the muscles (cycle through stretches while walking around the pitch, once the halfway point is reached, begin jogging, then sprint for the last 22 meters).
Move onto a high intensity exercise (run two sets of suicides: try line, 22, halfway, far 22, far try line).
Mover to 'long distance' exercises (run cross-field sprints: start on the try line at a corner, sprint to the far tryline's opposite corner, walk or jog the try line, then sprint the other diagonal).
Perform a 'warm down' exercise (jogging around the pitch).