POWERADE & John Mitchell help school rugby coaches and players 'Power Through'

There are no limits when it comes to what you can achieve with peak performance on the sports field and Powerade understands what it takes to power through.  Together with former New Zealand All Black, and international rugby coach, John Mitchell, high school rugby teams will move to another level through the Powerade Schools Programme, a five month campaign tackling all aspects of rugby training as well as a competition to build camaraderie amongst all school athletes no matter what sporting code they participate.

 

The Powerade Schools Programme aims to help born sportsmen power through the challenges that face them at every level of excellence in their sport by motivating, inspiring as well as providing useful information on training regimes, and how Powerade intrinsically fits into all of these elements.

 

“School boys and girls make up a large proportion of sports drink consumers and our Powerade brand optimises excellence,” said Craig van Niekerk, Marketing Assets Manager, Coca-Cola.  “And we are aware of the South African youth’s insatiable thirst to be the best and achieve on the sporting field.  We are also fully aware that coaches play a vital role in the formation of players and we have therefore devised our programme around coaches and players.”

 

Mitchell, together with Powerade, has devised a programme to help both schools coaches and players excel in the sport of rugby. There are many facets to achieving this, and this programme is based around two events where John Mitchell will get to impart his wealth of rugby knowledge and experience. They are the Powerade Performance Academy Sessions with the coaches of the top schools in the country, and the Powerade Performance Sessions whereby John will travel to 40 schools around the country.

 

The one day Powerade Performance Academy Sessions coincided with the hugely popular Easter rugby festivals played in the north and south of the country. On the 29^th of March all the first team coaches present at the KES, St Stithians and St Johns festivals in Gauteng gathered at St Johns, with all the first team coaches at the Oakdale festival in the Western Cape doing the same on the 1^st of March.

 

The content delivered during these sessions was of a technical nature, and provided the first team coaches access to information normally only accessible to Super Rugby coaches. Content covered by John Mitchell on the day ranged from the latest technological and physiological trends, latest training and skills theory and game analytics to really pin point and discuss the elements needed to power through as a team. With all this to inspire the coaches to take performance to new levels, John also went into the importance of nutrition and proper hydration for players, the key element for overcoming performance limiting factors.

 

“I am passionate about coaching coaches,” said Mitchell.  “coaches are the key to generating higher performance in schools, and by focusing on developing the inner strength and abilities within the kids to overcome barriers, they will all be able to become the best they can be.  Through my association with Super Rugby I am aware of any rule changes and how these can affect the interpretation of the game.”

 

Post the session, the coaches will be able to stay up to date with peak performance through newsletters sent to all coaches twice a month. These will include skills training content, pictures and links to video demonstrations from the Powerade Performance Sessions, Powerade Performance update videos as well as great competitions to participate in.

 

The Powerade Schools programme then moves from coaches to the players through Powerade Performance Sessions. 100 identified schools in South Africa will be given a giant Powerade bottle that they will need to fill with Powerade bottle caps. During the time period of the 15^th of March to the 19^th of April, schools will have the chance to make this happen with the 40 top participating schools winning a Powerade Performance Session with John Mitchell.

 

The programme doesn’t stop there.  The second leg prize for all participating 100 schools on the Powerade Performance Session activation sees one school getting the opportunity to attend a live Super Rugby match in their region as a school. Selection for this great prize will take place on June 14^th, allowing all the schools plenty of time to collect the bottle tops needed for victory.