The purpose of this study was to study practical wisdom in coaching, and how it relates to enhancing competitive ability in ball sports. To this end, an interview was conducted with a young coach who directed a top-level college handball team. The following aspects became clear upon qualitatively analyzing his narratives on planning, executing, and assessing game plans from a phenomenological perspective:
    1）When designing a game plan, a satisfactory result cannot be expected unless an effective strategy is planned and prepared by taking into account the opponent's predicted response to the strategy.
    2）The desired automation of team strategy in ball sports involves considering movements and ball handling as a loosely followed rule, prioritizing a player's judgment in individual play situations, and for other players to work in coordination with the player.
    3）Although persisting in one strategy enhances the achievement of strategy objectives, it does not necessarily enhance the team's competitive ability in the game as a whole.

    The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of “sacrifice bunt” in baseball, executed when a runner is on first base with no outs. The offensive strategies studied are, “sacrifice bunt”, “base stealing”, “hit-and-run”, “hitting”, and “hitting after first attempting to bunt”. We recorded 846 official games of Japanese Professional Baseball in 2006, and selected 3994 cases to categorize the strategies and the results. The results are as follows:
    （1） Following the bunts, the runner on first moved up to second base 81.6％ of the time, but the base runner advanced only 40.7％ after hitting.
    （2） However, following the bunts,the runner on first reached home plate 37.6％ of the time. This probability is almost the same as the one after hitting.
    （3） The expected number of runs in one inning for each strategy was: 0.73 for bunting, 0.86 for hitting, and 0.95 for the “hit-and-run”.
    There are possibilities that the effectiveness of five strategies are not the same as the result of (1) to (3), not in case of a league format and higher skill level. In this study, we didn’t discuss about each case with various situations, but examined many cases (3994) comprehensively. Based on our results we can see that it isn’t advisable to choose the “sacrifice bunt” in this situation. It seems that a more effective strategy for scoring runs is either hitting or executing the “hit-and-run”.

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sprint technical training program on sprint and jump ability of soccer players in competition season.
    The first group ( n＝13, ST group) performed a combined resistance and sprint training program at same training session. The second group ( n＝6, JT group) performed a combined jump and sprint training and the third group ( n＝6, MT group) performed jog-walk and sprint training with technical instructions. Squat jump, Countermovement jump, Rebound drop jump, Standing long jump and 3 steps long jump were tested as jump performance. The 30-m and 80-m dash and agility run were tested as sprint performance. Sprint movement of JT and MT groups were recorded by high speed video camera.
    After training, JT group performed faster significantly in the 30m dash, while MT group in 80m dash. JT and MT groups performed faster in sprint velocity with longer stride length and performed better in 3 steps long jump, while ST group performed slower in the 30m and 80m dash. We suggested that stiff leg of JT group and early leg scissors timing of the MT group made them run faster with longer stride length.
    We must take into consideration difference of the effect of ST, JT and MT program based with sprint technique in competition season. It is concluded that coaches have to assess the optimal balance between soccer training and sprint training components.

    The purpose of this study was to investigate technical factors relating to the maintenance of walking speed in race walking in official 20km races. Thirty-five elite race walkers were analyzed as subjects by using VTR camera (60 Hz) at 4-8km and 14-18km point during 20km official race. The results were as follows.
    Decreases in the recovery hip and knee joint torques resulted in decreases in the backward joint forces at the hip and knee, which decreased the joint force power at the recovery hip and knee and the mechanical energy flow from the recovery leg to the torso during the second half of the recovery phase. Therefore, decreases in the joint force at the recovery hip and knee decreased the mechanical energy flow, which might lead to decrease in the walking speed.

    This study was conducted to clarify the effect of changing the training load on middle-distance running performance and various physiological indexes during intermittent running tests including maximal anaerobic running test (MART) and maximal aerobic running test (VO₂-LT test). The subject was a well-trained female collegiate middle-distance runner. The results can be summarized as follows. 1) The total running distance of the third season in college (2,053km) decreased significantly (40 to 50 percent) compared with the first season in college (3,540km). In contrast, the distance of high-intensity running training increased about 35 percent (170 to 232km). 2) Physiological indexes (VO₂max, vVO₂max and velocity estimated by blood lactate movement) during running tests in the third season in college improved compared with indexes of the same period of the first season in college. 3) The 800m race time decreased 1.60 seconds and the average of race time meeting the criteria for Sports Form(minus 2 percent level of season best record) was reduced of 2.23 seconds from the first season to the third season in college. These results indicate that high-intensity running training throughout the season provides the possibility to avoid trading off aerobic power for anaerobic power and to improve the 800m race time.