EDucating Judo Coaches for Older practitioners

Background The growing aging European population urges to empower coaches with solid knowledge, competences, and skills to train older practitioners (≥ 65 yr). Sound judo interventions could be valuable resources to prevent falls, enhance functional abilities, and improve well-being across behavioral, physiological, psychological, and social domains of older novice practitioners, thus contrasting age-related decline, risks of chronic diseases, and mortality associated with sedentary behaviors. Objectives In line with the European recommendations on lifelong education for coaches and on active lifestyles to increase the benefits of health-enhancing judo in the lifespan, the “Educating Judo Coaches for Older practitioners” (EdJCO) project aimed to develop and validate a sound evidence- and eminence-based online and self-regulated educational programme tailored for judo coaches for training older practitioners. Implementation Phase1 The EdJCO conceptual education frameworkPhase2 The evidence and eminence-base information on the needs of judo for older practitionersPhase3 Development of the EdJCO education material and e-learning spacePhase4 Pilot training of invited judo coaches via e-learningPhase5 Participatory methodology for a sustainable EdJCO education programme. The dissemination of the 5-phase outcomes contributed to the international project identity. Achievements The extraordinary cooperation between Partners succeeded in involving many experts and licensed judo coaches (>600) in different phases of the project. The EdJCO programme has been promoted by the IJF Academy to >3000 licensed coaches and 205 judo federations worldwide, and by the University of Rome Foro Italico to 122 sports university departments in 14 European countries. Peer reviewed of 5 papers published in open-access journals corroborated the scientific relevance of the published results.