Luuk van Veldhoven | Sportscene - In every sports club, sports federation or Olympic Committee there are challenges to face. Below you can find a list of some of the most common ones.

• No satisfactory results or no progression as a team/club/federation
• Lack of inflow of new talents
• High drop-out rate, young burn-out
• Lack of money
• Lack of members and not attractive to the public in comparison to other sports or other activities
• Paralyzing fear of competition among the athletes and trainers
• Fear of losing their job among athletes and trainers

How often does it happen that sportsclubs or federations are already years and years coping with the same type of problems and aren´t able to move on? Clubs with continuous inflow of talents, and world-class results are definitely not widely spread. Even more so, often the strings are pulled by people who have none or little experience as athletes or trainers. For that reason, in the same way as in business, it can be very useful to consult experts in this field. Experts with a treasure of experience in sports as athletes, trainers, scientists and businesswise.

Now, let´s look at solutions for the above mentioned problems.

In case of non-satisfactory results one can explore the used training methods. Those who want to excel have to do things different than everybody else, “out of the box” thinking and acting is indicated. Therefore specialists in functional training and periodization can innovate the whole training system at senior level as well as at every other age.

In case of  lack of inflow of new talents probably changes have to be made in the trajectory from childhood to champion athlete. A plan needs to be set up (or the existing plan needs to be altered) in a way that it clarifies what needs to be done at every age. Again, in order to excel one has to think beyond the traditional training methods!

When there is a lack of members and the club or federation is not attractive enough in comparison with other sports it is useful to ask what can be done to represent more than just a club. Success is not only reflected by the amount of medals, but also in a more profound way. What kind of extra value can be given? Sports can actually serve as a vehicle  for education.  One  can achieve  this for example in  health related behaviors, integration of different ethnicities and respect for nature. Experts can indicate how this process can be optimized.

A high drop-out rate and young burn-out are often caused by putting to much pressure on young athletes and striving for short-term results. Long term planning in sports is an art and the only way to consistent success! Even more important, it avoids a lot of unnecessary stress from young athletes and leads to a longer life span of the athlete’s carrier.

In a creative way lack of money can be looked at specifically for every club or federation. Using creativity and business sense applied to sports always solutions can be found.

Fear of competition is very common among athletes and can affect trainers as well. On the other end coaches who are suffering from stress are transmitting this back to their athletes and so a vicious circle of tension and fear is created, which obviously jeopardizes the chances of success. Although it is quite easy to overcome a fear at rational level, it is not so straight forward to integrate this in your system as a human being. However, especially designed exercises and strategies to overcome any kind of fear have proven to be successful in already hundreds of athletes and non-athletes. Any kind of fear can actually be eradicated!

For sportsclubs, federations or Olympic Committees it is utterly important to consider all the above mentioned aspects and it can be extremely helpful to be guided by experts in this matter to put everything on track. This way success is being planned for. In a similar way as in business, experts in sports can screen the concerning organization, detect the existing problems and provide practical solutions.

Luuk van Veldhoven and Alessandra Pinto together gather a treasure of experience in sports. Both of them have been world class kayakers and trainers of national and international top-level athletes in canoeing and kayaking in different countries (Belgium, Brazil and Spain). Luuk has a wide range of experience as trainer of different sports, has been physical trainer of several professional  football  and  golf  players  and  is  the physical trainer of the current amateur World Champion Golf. He has finished his Phd thesis about education through sports and will present it in Oktober-November 2013. Besides that, he is a yoga teacher and designed exercises to help people to overcome their fears (also fear of competition) which are tested and proven to be successful to literally hundreds of people, including athletes. Alessandra (PhD. in Physical Education, specialized in kayaking and canoeing) teaches “The basics and specialization in canoeing and kayaking” and periodization in strength training and conditioning” at the Murcia University (Spain). Both are internationally renowned specialists in strength training and conditioning and are organizing courses in functional training and periodization in training in collaboration with the Murcia University. At the present, they run a gym (Generation Fitness) assuming full responsibility for the classes, personal training and marketing and are being very successful in spite of the severe crisis in Spain. A full screen can be made of any sportsclub (not necessarily canoeing and kayaking), federation or Olympic Committee and a plan can be set up to address the problem areas and help to move forward.  All this can be realized in 6 different languages (English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and French) and on a small scale as well as on large scale (e.g. the collaboration with the Olympic Committee of Peru: http://www.archive.sportscene.tv/news/strengthening-olympic-values-in-the-amazon-forest-peru and with the International Canoe Federation: International sprint canoe and kayak level I training in Peru). Obviously, financially, the costs for putting any organization on track outweigh by far the expenses if it will not be! Alessandra and Luuk are very passionate about their work and believe that when skill and knowledge are combined with working from the heart, success is inevitable. If you want to help your sports organization to move forward, you can contact for more information luuk_vv @ hotmail.com