"Consider the fact that we are called the ′Institute for Applied Nonsense′. Do not be surprised if our exercises are somewhat different!" With these words, Holger Geschwindner begins with his demonstration of training. On Wednesday, October 22, 2015, Dirk Nowitzki's trainer was a guest at the Faculty for Sport and Health Sciences. Invited by Diana Belik from the Operational Unit for Applied Sport Sciences, Geschwindner carried out training a training session from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. Around 150 students and a large number of lecturers from the faculty came to see this in gymnasium 1.
Gschwindner: Return to the past
Belik remembers, "I saw Mr. Geschwindner's exercises at a summer camp in Starnberg and I was fascinated". Since then, Belik has dreamed of inviting Dirk Nowitzki's trainer for the students. For the 70-year-old Geschwindner, it was at the same time a return to the past. At the Olympic Games in Munich 1972, he participated as the captain of the national team. From 1969 - 1977, the Hessian played for the USC Munich in der German professional league and thereby trained at the TUM Center in the Olympiapark (CiO).
Geschwindner specializes in individual training. "I always try to unite everything in a unit: Balance, movement, strength, coordination. And to thereby train everything with the ball", says the trainer and consultant to the most successful German basketball player of all times. In order to demonstrate his concept, he brought along three young players from Bamberg who were already acquainted with his exercises.
Variations of lay-ups with different movement elements
On Wednesday, Geschwindner focused on varieties of layups, which are carried out from the right and the left with different movement tasks. The individual elements are similar to a type of construction kit. Different movements are performed with one another combined in different variations. Turning around one's own axis in single and two-fold form, feints or ball exercises, like guiding the ball around one's body. Geschwindner alternates the exercises with a minimum of words. There are no lengthy breaks and no speeches are made. Simply a waste of time!
However, what is so special with this training? And how does it differ so intensively from other forms of training? The basketball lecturer Belik explains, "Some of the exercises apparently have no direct orientation to competitive sport, since they can hardly be used in a basketball game - like, for example the two-fold turning around one's own axis before making a shot. However, that is also not the heart of the matter, but it instead involves much more the coordinative capabilities that play a very important role in basketball games. All forms of exercise carried out by Holger are unusual, motivational and by no means boring, whether for strength, speed or maneuverability."
"Basketball is jazz" - this is the credo of Nowitzki's trainer. This also means that his training borrows some aspects from other types of sport, for instance dance. The result is clear to see. The three young players from Bamberg carry out the exercises smoothly, shift their weight in a targeted manner and perform 360-degree rotations on the ball of their foot with great precision and speed. And they also make baskets after rotating 360 degrees to the left and to the right. These are exercises which caused some of the students present, who were invited by Geschwindner to participate, to spin out of control.
Poster of Nowitzki-exercises
"Together with the Max Planck Institute for Psychology, we once attempted to discover after how much practice one actually learns something. Hereby, it was seen that six successful repetitions are necessary", elucidates Geschwindner. In line with this, he carries out his training sessions until a minimum of six repetitions are performed successfully. "If necessary, we occasionally won't do anything else."
To describe the exercises developed for and with Dirk Nowitzki, Geschwindner has designed a poster which can be downloaded from the Internet site of his "Institute for Applied nonsense". In addition, there are translations in various languages - including Japanese and Swahili - as well as a special App. To the Homepage of the Operational Unit for Applied Sport Sciences To the Homepage of the Institute for Applied Nonsense
Contact:
Diana Belik
Betriebseinheit für Angewandte Sportwissenschaften
Connollystr. 32
80809 Munich
Telephone: 089 289 24672 E-Mail: Diana.Belik(at)tum.de