Thank you to my former intern for writing an article about his experience as a strength and conditioning coach in Hong Kong.
Shawn

International Strength and Conditioning Coaching
Andy Martin, CSCS
 
I recently returned from a trip overseas to Hong Kong where I worked as the strength and conditioning coach for the Winling Basketball Club in the Hong Kong Basketball Association. As strength coaches, adaptability is one of the foremost skills required to be successful; be it to different athletes, different administrations/front offices, etc. I found this to be especially true while coaching overseas. While I am sure that each country has its own special challenges, I believe that some of the lessons I learned may be universal when coaching internationally.
Hong Kong Basketball
For those of us that have had a chance to coach athletes in the US, specifically basketball athletes, we are fortunate to have seen basketball played at a level that has been and continues to be the premier level in the world. In some countries, due to a lack of grass roots basketball programs, the level of basketball is much lower than we are used to in the US. That isn’t to say that young kids in Hong Kong don’t play basketball, in fact it’s wildly popular there, but they are rarely taught fundamentals that we take for granted because we are so exposed to them growing up. Hong Kong normally does not fare well against the other national teams in Asia.
With that said, the players are still very athletic. Some of them had some experience with “working out”, but none of them had any experience with actual sport performance training. So the task became to identify and correct any movement deficiencies, and design and implement training protocols to athletically develop the younger players and protect the health and performance of the older players. The experience as a whole was a wonderful opportunity, and I would not hesitate to go back overseas to coach, but there a number of challenges that I faced during my time there.
 
Breaking Down the Language Barrier
Before going over, I knew absolutely no Chinese. I still don’t know much, but you will naturally pick up some words/phrases simply from being exposed to the language on a daily basis. Most everyone could speak some English, and nearly everyone could understand English, but any team meetings or exchanges were almost exclusively in Cantonese. Only one player on the team was actually fluent in English, so immediately I was working against a language barrier. Also, I was informed that Cantonese is a harder version of Chinese to learn than Mandarin, so learning the native language was not a realistic option.
If possible, learning the language of the country you will be coaching in is ideal. However when this is not a practical option, try to learn at least the basic words and phrases that you will be using on a regular basis. Learn how to count, and learn basic instructional phrases that you will use during workouts, like yes/no, stop/go, and good job. A large part of the strength and conditioning process is building a relationship with the athletes, and even though you may not be fluent, displaying an effort to communicate with the athletes in their native tongue is a great start to building that bridge.
Overcoming Facilities/Scheduling Challenges
For the team that I was working with, a number of the players also had regular day jobs. This poses a scheduling problem, since the players will not always have time to come work out, and when they do the times will change from day to day. In addition, our off-court workouts were in a commercial gym, just like a large gym chain in the US. So the issue becomes you may have athletes coming in at different times during the day, and you are trying to put them through workouts while also battling the normal gym crowd for equipment. This is where the “art” of strength coaching comes into play in a big way. Being able to rotate between 1-5 athletes, at different points of a workout, spread out all over the gym, can be an incredibly difficult task. Therefore, organizational skills and the ability to adapt exercises when dictated by available equipment are invaluable skills. Ideally, you would be able to put your athletes on some sort of schedule and have your own facilities to be able to control the workout environment. But when this is not the case, you must be able to make due with the time/equipment you do have and still ensure that your athletes are progressing.  
Facing Cultural Opposition to Progressive Training
Chances are if you are coaching overseas, that the athletes have most likely never gone through a progressive resistance training program. At least in the HKBA, players must be either born in Hong Kong, or naturalized as a citizen. This differs from many other leagues in Asia and Europe, where teams are allowed to import players from other countries. The particular problem this posed in Hong Kong was that there was only one real cultural outlook on “working out”. Setting aside the health aspect, most gym-goers in Hong Kong had a very bodybuilding mindset. They were not concerned with muscular strength/endurance, and especially not sport performance, but simply that they had very defined musculature. There were some very strong, muscular individuals, but most showed signs of some pharmacological assistance.
With this being the culture surrounding working out, it is difficult at first to get the players to understand why foam rolling is important, or why you spend 10-20 minutes on neuromuscular/core activation. If it’s not tricep pressdowns or bicep curls, it will take them some time to get on board. This is why an effective strength coach has to be able to educate his athletes as well as develop their program. You have to be able to convey the benefit of the exercises you select as it translates to on-court performance. If you can do that, and get the athletes to understand why you do certain exercises and why the whole workout isn’t spent doing bench press and curls and crunches, then you will have a much easier time getting the athletes to push themselves and really develop.
Adapting to Foreign Cultures/Building Relationships
Coaching overseas is just like any other opportunity in that it gives you a chance to make personal and professional relationships. Especially with basketball, which is probably the most popular sport in the world (aside from soccer), there are coaching opportunities to be had in a multitude of countries. If you can demonstrate that you can not only blend into a foreign culture, but also be a valuable asset to an organization, then you make yourself marketable to teams in any country that may need a strength coach. Coaching internationally can be a valuable and eye-opening experience that I personally feel makes you a better coach because you gain a new perspective on how to deal with athletes. Not just different personalities, but completely different life experiences.