Everyone needs fuel and everyone needs nutrients. Yet everyone eats for completely different reasons. Sports Nutrition can provide you that extra edge over your competitor and is an essential component to being a high performance athlete. There are so many different opinions, ways of doing things, answers to weight loss, answers to weight gain everywhere you turn that it can become confusing to a point where acting on good intentions seems to halt.
Here are 5 Tips that athletes should keep in mind when dealing with their nutrition.
1. Stay hydrated – Because our bodies are made up of 55-65% fluid, it is essential that athletes stay adequately hydrated in order to avoid heat illness and cramping. When practicing in hot, humid weather, some of the larger athletes can lose as much as 10-12 cups of fluid (he/she would need to drink double this amount to re-hydrate). Even being slightly dehydrated can impair performance, so athletes should drink liberal amounts of water and sports drinks throughout the day, during and after practice. Usually it is too late when you actually start to feel dehydrated so don't use that as your indicator to start drinking water.
2. Consume adequate calories and carbohydrates – Because food is our fuel, athletes need to ensure adequate calorie and carbohydrate consumption every day. Complex carbohydrates including whole grain breads, cereals, pastas, fruits and vegetables should make up at least 50% of our diets. Carbohydrates, our body’s chief form of energy is stored as glycogen in our muscles (and liver). A diet deficient in carbohydrates and calories, can increase the risk of fatigue, injuries and a drastic decrease in performance.
3. Eat Adequate amounts of protein - Adequate protein, in addition to serving many metabolic functions in the body, is also essential for rebuilding and repair of our body's tissue. Because athletes are continuously tearing down muscle tissue through regular workouts, they should consume adequate amounts of meat, beans, fish, poultry, nuts, peanut butter, eggs and dairy products.
4. Regular meals and snacks - For most athletes, it is almost impossible to meet the nutrition requirements with less than 3 meals and 2-3 snacks each day. Eating regularly (every 2-4 hours) helps to maintain blood glucose and energy throughout the day and through practice. A mistake athletes often make is thinking that they don’t have to eat adequately on "non-workout days." These "off" days should instead be treated as "re-fueling days" and athletes can take advantage of having more time to prepare well-balanced meals.
5. Avoid fad diets and supplements – Frequently looking for that extra edge, athletes are often targeted by the market industry with products promising special "energy boosting," "performance enhancing" or "muscle gaining" results. Frequently these products or diets have little (if any) scientific data backing them and can actually be damaging to an athletes performance. A high performance diet is often the key that athletes need to help them get that extra edge over their competition.
Charlotte Speed and Strength Coach
Showing posts with label youth sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth sports. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Jump Training For Volleyball and Basketball Players: Part 2
This article will describe a basic jump training program with an emphasis on the sport of basketball and volleyball to help those that are coaches and players improve in the area of jumping higher. Even though it is designed specifically for those athletes that play sports such as basketball and volleyball, coaches of other sports that require jumping can also use the information as well.
Very few athletic measurements evoke awe-inspiring glances as a forty-inch vertical jump. While incredibly important when dunking a basketball or spiking a volleyball, the vertical jump test is a standard measurement of one's explosive power; that is, the amount of force one is able to generate in a specific, in this case immediate, amount of time. A high vertical jump requires the athlete to coordinate a whole body movement to drive a downward force onto the ground sufficient to propel the body against the force of gravity and into the air.
Many athletes attempt to improve their vertical jump through gimmicks such as the strength shoes that are marketed on the Internet or in catalog magazines; however, the only true way to increase one’s vertical is through the traditional strength training that is done in the gym through Olympic lifts and jump training exercises.
Jump training is very individual and must be tailored to the specific athlete it is intended for. Every athlete has different concerns and needs. Additionally, injury can result from the incorrect use of it.
Jumping is a complex multi-joint movement that requires muscle coordination best improved by specific skill development. Traditional strength training, explosive types of weight training, jump training and Olympic lifting can be effective for increasing the vertical jump. Before embarking in a jump training regiment, athletes and coaches must consider the athlete’s goal. In addition, they must determine the relative strength and weakness the athlete has at the start of designing a program.
Some program considerations.
As discussed in previous articles, the principle of specificity must govern the training regimen. What this means is the exercises selected for the program must simulate basketball movements in speed, biomechanics and resistance. Train athletes so that they are able to transfer what is being taught into their sport. (This is the reason for them coming to me in the first place.)
Safety and proper progression must be at the forefront of the program. It is better to under-prescribe then to over-prescribe.
Advanced exercises must be reserved for only advanced athletes.
Beginners always want to progress faster than they are capable of. It is the coach’s job to explain, and insist on, proper progression.
Although beginning jump training programs may be performed by most people, to participate safely in an aggressive jump training program many authors suggest that the athlete should be able to squat 1.5 times body weight. Therefore, a considerable strength base becomes imperative when embarking on a challenging jump training program. For most athletes, 8-12 weeks of periodized, resistance training should be sufficient to bring strength levels to adequate levels.
A proper warm up and cool down can not be emphasized enough. The warm-up must proceed from general (e.g. jogging or skipping rope) to specific preparatory exercises (e.g. dynamic stretches similar to exercises being performed). The cool down should focus on flexibility via static stretches and allow the gradual return to a pre-exercises state.
The correct amount of jump training must be provided. High intensity must govern the jump training training session. Quality, not quantity, is the cornerstone of jump training training – all exercises are to be performed at maximal effort. When training, emphasis should be on the athlete training in game time speed so that the muscles train in the manner needed when they are actually in the competition.
However, there must be a balanced relationship between stress and rest. Insufficient rest is the most common cause of injury in jump trainings.
Let me repeat that statement again. Insufficient rest is the most common case of injury in jump training. Too much, too soon.
Athletes should rest 1-3 minutes between sets and 3-5 minutes between exercises within a single training session. Recovery between sessions becomes more complex due to the many variables to consider (e.g. practice schedules, strength training volume, level of athletic development, etc.). It is here where the experience of a trained professional becomes paramount.
Finally, individual program design must be part of the final process. Although a general program can be designed for a team. The coach must “tweak” each program to deal with the specifics of the individual athlete. Adjustments to fit the athlete’s characteristics are always made. Because of individual variations, cookie-cutter jump training programs are a sure way to hurt athletes. Medical history, training age, muscle imbalances, sport and position played are some of the variables that will dictate the specific design of the program. For the sake for simplicity there are three basic categories of jump training exercises.
Jumps, hops and bounds.
Jumps are exercises where you land with both feet (e.g. long jump). The take off can be performed with one foot or two feet. Jumps can be done in place (e.g. jumping jacks) or for distance (e.g. multiple long jumps).
Hops are exercises where you take off one foot and land on the same foot (e.g. single leg hopping). Hops can also be done in place (e.g. stationary single leg ankle hops) or for distance (e.g. multiple single leg hops). Since hops are a single leg exercise, they require much more strength than jumps.
Bounding exercises are exercises where one takes off on one foot and lands on the other foot (e.g. alternate leg bounding). Bounds are usually done for distance. Bounds can be the most challenging of the jump training exercises. However, there is over lap between the categories. For example, a very advance jump exercise can be more demanding than a beginning bound exercise.
Athletes should make sure they seek the advice of a professional who is trained and experienced in this method of training before you embark on a serious jump training routine. A good program put together by a professional strength coach can aid an athlete and improve the athlete's speed, quickness and jumping ability, and these gains may transform the player's playing career.
Charlotte Strength and Speed Coach
Very few athletic measurements evoke awe-inspiring glances as a forty-inch vertical jump. While incredibly important when dunking a basketball or spiking a volleyball, the vertical jump test is a standard measurement of one's explosive power; that is, the amount of force one is able to generate in a specific, in this case immediate, amount of time. A high vertical jump requires the athlete to coordinate a whole body movement to drive a downward force onto the ground sufficient to propel the body against the force of gravity and into the air.
Many athletes attempt to improve their vertical jump through gimmicks such as the strength shoes that are marketed on the Internet or in catalog magazines; however, the only true way to increase one’s vertical is through the traditional strength training that is done in the gym through Olympic lifts and jump training exercises.
Jump training is very individual and must be tailored to the specific athlete it is intended for. Every athlete has different concerns and needs. Additionally, injury can result from the incorrect use of it.
Jumping is a complex multi-joint movement that requires muscle coordination best improved by specific skill development. Traditional strength training, explosive types of weight training, jump training and Olympic lifting can be effective for increasing the vertical jump. Before embarking in a jump training regiment, athletes and coaches must consider the athlete’s goal. In addition, they must determine the relative strength and weakness the athlete has at the start of designing a program.
Some program considerations.
As discussed in previous articles, the principle of specificity must govern the training regimen. What this means is the exercises selected for the program must simulate basketball movements in speed, biomechanics and resistance. Train athletes so that they are able to transfer what is being taught into their sport. (This is the reason for them coming to me in the first place.)
Safety and proper progression must be at the forefront of the program. It is better to under-prescribe then to over-prescribe.
Advanced exercises must be reserved for only advanced athletes.
Beginners always want to progress faster than they are capable of. It is the coach’s job to explain, and insist on, proper progression.
Although beginning jump training programs may be performed by most people, to participate safely in an aggressive jump training program many authors suggest that the athlete should be able to squat 1.5 times body weight. Therefore, a considerable strength base becomes imperative when embarking on a challenging jump training program. For most athletes, 8-12 weeks of periodized, resistance training should be sufficient to bring strength levels to adequate levels.
A proper warm up and cool down can not be emphasized enough. The warm-up must proceed from general (e.g. jogging or skipping rope) to specific preparatory exercises (e.g. dynamic stretches similar to exercises being performed). The cool down should focus on flexibility via static stretches and allow the gradual return to a pre-exercises state.
The correct amount of jump training must be provided. High intensity must govern the jump training training session. Quality, not quantity, is the cornerstone of jump training training – all exercises are to be performed at maximal effort. When training, emphasis should be on the athlete training in game time speed so that the muscles train in the manner needed when they are actually in the competition.
However, there must be a balanced relationship between stress and rest. Insufficient rest is the most common cause of injury in jump trainings.
Let me repeat that statement again. Insufficient rest is the most common case of injury in jump training. Too much, too soon.
Athletes should rest 1-3 minutes between sets and 3-5 minutes between exercises within a single training session. Recovery between sessions becomes more complex due to the many variables to consider (e.g. practice schedules, strength training volume, level of athletic development, etc.). It is here where the experience of a trained professional becomes paramount.
Finally, individual program design must be part of the final process. Although a general program can be designed for a team. The coach must “tweak” each program to deal with the specifics of the individual athlete. Adjustments to fit the athlete’s characteristics are always made. Because of individual variations, cookie-cutter jump training programs are a sure way to hurt athletes. Medical history, training age, muscle imbalances, sport and position played are some of the variables that will dictate the specific design of the program. For the sake for simplicity there are three basic categories of jump training exercises.
Jumps, hops and bounds.
Jumps are exercises where you land with both feet (e.g. long jump). The take off can be performed with one foot or two feet. Jumps can be done in place (e.g. jumping jacks) or for distance (e.g. multiple long jumps).
Hops are exercises where you take off one foot and land on the same foot (e.g. single leg hopping). Hops can also be done in place (e.g. stationary single leg ankle hops) or for distance (e.g. multiple single leg hops). Since hops are a single leg exercise, they require much more strength than jumps.
Bounding exercises are exercises where one takes off on one foot and lands on the other foot (e.g. alternate leg bounding). Bounds are usually done for distance. Bounds can be the most challenging of the jump training exercises. However, there is over lap between the categories. For example, a very advance jump exercise can be more demanding than a beginning bound exercise.
Athletes should make sure they seek the advice of a professional who is trained and experienced in this method of training before you embark on a serious jump training routine. A good program put together by a professional strength coach can aid an athlete and improve the athlete's speed, quickness and jumping ability, and these gains may transform the player's playing career.
Charlotte Strength and Speed Coach
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Importance of Reaction Training and Speed
Sports are made up of many different components as it relates to speed and quickness. One must not only be able to initiate enough power and strength to start and stop their bodies against momentum, but they also must be able to maintain their speed during the designated time they are in play. In addition to these concepts, many people forget that there is one more skill that needs to be addressed that could improve one’s speed in sports. Miss this one and even a player whose considered fast can be considered slow.
Reaction Time.
Reaction time is paramount when one looks at speed training.
Reaction is defined as the interval time between a stimulus and muscle contraction. In layman terms how long it takes the body to respond to a particular cue i.e. gun blast in track and field, the signal to hike the ball and start of the play in football, the reaction to jump after a rebound in basketball, or the cue to run after the ball is hit in softball or baseball. Overall reaction ability is something that be trained over time with practice like all the other components of speed and agility. As with all the rest of the speed components, coaches and athletes need to analyze what type of reaction is needed for their sport in order train and improve their reaction.
Coaches need to consider these concepts when addressing reaction:
• Detecting the cue - in a sprint start, focusing on the starter's voice and the sound of the gun and separating this from background crowd noise and negative thoughts
• Detecting relevant cues - a goalkeeper learning to analyze body language at penalties
• Decision making - working on set pieces and game situations
• Change in attention focus - being able to switch quickly from concentration on the opponent to concentration on the field of play in invasion games
• Controlling anxiety - which slows reaction times by adding conflicting information
• Creating optimum levels of motivation - 'psyching up'
• Warm up - to ensure the sense organs and nervous system are ready to transmit information and the muscles to act upon it
When I train my athletes, I tell them to always anticipate the cue that is being used to start and engage them in their exercise or drill i.e. the whistle being blown or me giving them a cadence. Anticipation is a strategy used by athletes to reduce the time they take to respond to a stimulus i.e. the defensive lineman that anticipates the center snapping the ball, or the receiver that anticipates the snap by looking at the ball instead of paying attention to the snap count at the start of the play has a better chance of getting off the ball and making their opponent react to them as oppose to starting at the same time as everyone else. In these scenarios, the player has learned to detect certain cues early in the play and has predicted when the start of the play will begin. I teach all my athletes to respond to the cues. What I mean by this is they are able to anticipate and react to the early sound which gives them a greater lead and advantage over their opponents.
I am not only an advocate of reaction but I have my own experiences as to how reaction has helped open up opportunities for me as well. In college, reaction time was the factor that helped me get on the travel squad my freshman year for special teams (punt team) because in practice time and time again I would beat my opponents off the edge and block the punts. What distinguish me from my teammates was that I didn’t concentrate on the snap count; I was more focused on when the center moved the ball. Every time I lined down I would look directly at the ball and when the center moved the ball slightly, I would take off putting the offensive guy on defense because now he had to react to my momentum instead of vice versa.
Finally, as mentioned previously, the objective of reaction speed drills is to improve your reaction time to a stimulus. The drills can include the control of an object (e.g. football or hockey puck). The cue for the reaction to take place can be visual (movement of an object) or a specific command (voice) or sound (starter's gun). The cue should be appropriate to your event or sport - starter's gun for a sprinter. Take these suggestions and work on them so that it improves not only your speed but also can improve your overall athleticism.
Charlotte Speed Coach
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Need For Quickness Training
As a speed coach, I get asked by parents and coaches if speed and quickness are different, or the same, or if one is more important than the other. Every coach and parent wants the same result, for their athlete(s) to be faster and quicker. I always say that usually athletes need to be quicker to get to one point before their opponent does and then speed to finish off the play. In most sports the average time of a play is a couple of seconds. For example, in football the average play takes about 3-5 seconds. In addition, athletes are required to cover a small amount of distance in a short amount of time. You seldom see athletes that are required to run for a long distance or for a long period of time.
So to answer the question they both speed and quickness are important in order for the athlete to be successful in whatever sport they are participating in.
Quickness training is one of the most overlooked areas in speed training - and sometimes seldom addressed or forgotten.
Just as the myth that some think that athletes are born with speed, the same applies with the concept of quickness. Quickness too can be taught and learned over a period of time if taught properly.
Quickness is how fast someone responds to a stimulus; whereas, reaction time is a part of someone's quickness and can be trained. Quickness training drills can be implemented in an athlete's agility training so that they can also train for speed and quickness during the same session.
Here are some training drills you can use for quickness development:
-Ball Drop
Your partner holds a tennis ball out in one hand. You start in an athletic stance and when the tennis ball is released/dropped, you sprint to the ball and snatch it before it bounces more than once. This is a great drill for first step quickness training.
You can change the distance that you partner stands away from you.
-Partner Mirror Drill
This is like the shadow game that you use to play as kids. This drill is performed between partners. One partner starts moving and the other partner follows and doesn't allowed to be juked. You need to try and mirror the movement and match each reaction.
-Fox and Hound
One person will be designated as the fox (leader). The other will be designated as the hound (chaser). The leader’s/ fox job is to try to elude the chaser/ hound as much as possible without the hound touching him/her. Place four cones in a square and designate the distance between the four cones, with a fifth one in the middle. The fox can run around the cones in any order or direction trying not to get touched. Remember the hound has to follow the same pattern as the fox. Note: have the fox run out about five yards or 5-6 seconds before releasing the hound to make the drill harder for the hound if the goal is to work on reaction for the defensive player. For offensive player, have the hound released earlier to have the fox work harder to elude and cut harder.
Variation(s): Have a third person (coach) with a watch or a whistle to time the two for a designate amount of time during the drill. At the beginning, the coach yells “Go!” and the drills begin for the amount of 20 -30 seconds. Then the coach yells “Stops!” The roles are switch. Points are awarded to each player. If the hound is able to catch and touch the person he/she is awarded one (1) point. If the fox is unable to get caught, he/she is able are awarded two (2) points. Penalties: (1) one point is taken away from the fox if he/she runs outside the designate boundaries. Also if the hound dives, then one (1) point is taken away. Have the loser perform a designated amount of push ups or some other form of punishment in order to make the game or drill better. For a more reaction and situational setting have the coach blow the whistle at unexpected times to change the role from the fox to hound and vice versa.
These quickness training drills with help your athletes become faster and should be added to every sports speed training program.
Speed and Performance Coach in Charlotte, NC
So to answer the question they both speed and quickness are important in order for the athlete to be successful in whatever sport they are participating in.
Quickness training is one of the most overlooked areas in speed training - and sometimes seldom addressed or forgotten.
Just as the myth that some think that athletes are born with speed, the same applies with the concept of quickness. Quickness too can be taught and learned over a period of time if taught properly.
Quickness is how fast someone responds to a stimulus; whereas, reaction time is a part of someone's quickness and can be trained. Quickness training drills can be implemented in an athlete's agility training so that they can also train for speed and quickness during the same session.
Here are some training drills you can use for quickness development:
-Ball Drop
Your partner holds a tennis ball out in one hand. You start in an athletic stance and when the tennis ball is released/dropped, you sprint to the ball and snatch it before it bounces more than once. This is a great drill for first step quickness training.
You can change the distance that you partner stands away from you.
-Partner Mirror Drill
This is like the shadow game that you use to play as kids. This drill is performed between partners. One partner starts moving and the other partner follows and doesn't allowed to be juked. You need to try and mirror the movement and match each reaction.
-Fox and Hound
One person will be designated as the fox (leader). The other will be designated as the hound (chaser). The leader’s/ fox job is to try to elude the chaser/ hound as much as possible without the hound touching him/her. Place four cones in a square and designate the distance between the four cones, with a fifth one in the middle. The fox can run around the cones in any order or direction trying not to get touched. Remember the hound has to follow the same pattern as the fox. Note: have the fox run out about five yards or 5-6 seconds before releasing the hound to make the drill harder for the hound if the goal is to work on reaction for the defensive player. For offensive player, have the hound released earlier to have the fox work harder to elude and cut harder.
Variation(s): Have a third person (coach) with a watch or a whistle to time the two for a designate amount of time during the drill. At the beginning, the coach yells “Go!” and the drills begin for the amount of 20 -30 seconds. Then the coach yells “Stops!” The roles are switch. Points are awarded to each player. If the hound is able to catch and touch the person he/she is awarded one (1) point. If the fox is unable to get caught, he/she is able are awarded two (2) points. Penalties: (1) one point is taken away from the fox if he/she runs outside the designate boundaries. Also if the hound dives, then one (1) point is taken away. Have the loser perform a designated amount of push ups or some other form of punishment in order to make the game or drill better. For a more reaction and situational setting have the coach blow the whistle at unexpected times to change the role from the fox to hound and vice versa.
These quickness training drills with help your athletes become faster and should be added to every sports speed training program.
Speed and Performance Coach in Charlotte, NC
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Top Speed Training Myths Revealed
As a speed coach, I receive questions about training speed. So I've taken those questions that I hear the most and answered them in a slightly different format.
1. Static stretching prepares you to compete/practice
Static stretching actually reduces power output. The best type of stretching that an athlete should utilize before practice is dynamic stretching which warms up the body and prepares and mimics the movement that the athlete’s body will be engaged in doing. The progression of movement should start off from basic, low intensity movements to faster, more explosive movements as the muscles loosen up.
2. Stretch and then do a warm up
You should never stretch a cold muscle because you can cause more harm than good to the muscle belly while the muscle is cold. Instead, athletes should do some small warm up to increase the body temperature so that the muscle is warm and plausible to stretch. Think of the muscle as a rubber band. Would you stretch a cold rubber band that has been in the freezer for days?
3. Strength training makes females too bulky
This is a popular mindset with many female athletes that we have worked with. However, this as far fetched of a myth than any of the ones that I have to debunk. Strength training not only is of injury prevention because it assists with building the muscles, tendons, and ligaments to withstand the stress of the sports. In addition, we know that the female population is more susceptible to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than their male counterparts. Fatigued lower limb muscles can inhibit the ability to control dynamic sports landing movements, increasing the risk of non-contact injury to the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), particularly among females. Prevention and prehabilitation is always better the rehabilitation. Strength training will improve performance and reduce injury if done correctly. If you look at Mia Hamm, Venus and Serna Williams, these athletes train with weights and have a great physique on and off the court.
4. You can’t train speed
For some reason it is a popular belief that you are born with a certain amount of ‘speed’ and you can’t improve it. If that’s the case than the Olympians that participate every four years waste their time throughout training to get better because they have nature born speed that will just come on when the touch foot on the track. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Speed is a skill that can be learned and the problem that I see with most young athletes is they are so physically weak and mechanically out of tune that significant improvements in speed can be made often just by working on technique and form. Athletes at any age and any level can improve speed when implementing a complete speed training program designed to improve and develop the entire athlete.
5. Training slow makes you fast
I don’t think coaches directly believe this way, but their training implies otherwise. I think they understand this when it comes to practicing for their sport for they know that in order for the athletes to get a true feel and understanding of what is required when in competition, the athlete must be put in ‘game speed’ situations so that their bodies are able to react. The same is true for speed training, in order for an athlete to be able to get faster, they must train their fast twitch muscle fibers consistently and properly so that they will be able to translate their training to the competition. Athletes must train how they play or train the way their sports demands of them. For example in sports that involve a higher aerobic element such as soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc. I see kids out running mileage and doing long slow intervals of several minutes of continuous running. If their goal is to get faster for the season and want to improve their overall speed and first step quickness to the ball, they must train their muscles to fire and work in the same manner that the demand will be placed on them for the sport. If you want athletes to improve their acceleration and top speed so they can get to the ball faster or get back on defense, then you have to train by running at full speed in practice.
6. You can train hard every day
Most coaches and parents understand this concept when it comes to strength training with training the same body part over and over. However, when it comes to speed training this concept gets thrown out the window for some reason. The workout itself is only a piece of the training puzzle. Just as with strength training, athlete’s muscles aren’t built in the weight room but during the recovery period, so is true with speed training. It is the time between intense workouts, the recovery, where athletes make their improvements. And generally it takes 36-48 hours to recover from high intensity training. If athletes are doing too much, too often they become over trained. Coaches can expect to see an increase in injuries, athletes complaining that they are sore more often, decreased performance, higher levels of fatigue earlier in games, and the BIG ONE—burnout. It’s always better to under train an athlete than over train. Err on the side of caution to get maximal results.
7. Strength training will stunt a young athlete’s growth
This is another myth held over from a different time. With parents having their kids participate in year round sports, strength training can assist with preventing some of the injuries that these athletes may be susceptible to with year round participation. These loads on the body can have a much greater physical impact than a well designed strength training program. Though I don’t usually begin training with weights with pre pubescent athletes, they can benefit from body weight exercises such as push ups, full body squats, pull ups, crunches, sit ups, etc. This will increase muscular efficiency, speed up recovery, improve coordination and overall speed.
8. The harder the workout, the better the result
Some athletes (and coaches) have this mentality that if a workout doesn’t reduce them to complete exhaustion and/or make them vomit, that it wasn’t an effective workout. I hated coaches that thought like this and now that I am a speed/ performance coach, I still hate it. The reasoning behind the vomiting is that the body is trying to buffer the blood due to it being too acidic and the lack of oxygen left for the muscles to use during the workout. Now that young athletes are dying due to myocarditis and other abnormal heart conditions, ‘old school’ coaches that have this mentality need not apply with working with youth athletes period. Also those who have this mentality probably see a lot of injuries and frustrating performances. The purpose of a workout is to stimulate an adaptation by the body. If the body is forced to do too much work in a given time period, it will break down. The skill in coaching is to stimulate the adaptation in the body, without reaching a point of diminishing returns.
9. Interval training is the same as speed training
Running repeat 100s, 200s, etc will not improve top speeds. Even running
repeat 40s with short recovery will not improve acceleration and top speeds. I wish someone had explained this myth and concept to my college coaches when they had us doing repeated 100s and 200s in the hot summer heat to improve our speed! Speed work is defined at 2-8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means at least 2 minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This
goes against the experience of some coaches, but simply put, is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they do not recover properly from each interval, they will not be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can not improve.
10. Flexibility won’t help you get faster
Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training and conditioning that they often forget a fundamental component of success: flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. Now is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. I see this often in the hips and hip flexors where athletes’ stride length appears conspicuously short. Most often I see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work. Hey I have been guilty of this one myself throughout the years of my high school and collegiate career.
11. Lift your knees
I hear so many parents and coaches yelling to their kids when they want them to run faster or when they are beginning to fatigue, “Lift your knees, Get your knees up”.
This is one of the most backwards cues you can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the more force you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give
back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of the glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed? Second, we’re cueing them and teaching a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age 7, to lift their knees when they need a burst of speed, that improper cue will be hardwired into their brain. To unlearn that as a teen and try to do the opposite and drive down, that athlete will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backwards. That’s why it is critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground, with the foot landing underneath the hip.
Speed/ Performance Coach and Speed Camps in Charlotte, NC
1. Static stretching prepares you to compete/practice
Static stretching actually reduces power output. The best type of stretching that an athlete should utilize before practice is dynamic stretching which warms up the body and prepares and mimics the movement that the athlete’s body will be engaged in doing. The progression of movement should start off from basic, low intensity movements to faster, more explosive movements as the muscles loosen up.
2. Stretch and then do a warm up
You should never stretch a cold muscle because you can cause more harm than good to the muscle belly while the muscle is cold. Instead, athletes should do some small warm up to increase the body temperature so that the muscle is warm and plausible to stretch. Think of the muscle as a rubber band. Would you stretch a cold rubber band that has been in the freezer for days?
3. Strength training makes females too bulky
This is a popular mindset with many female athletes that we have worked with. However, this as far fetched of a myth than any of the ones that I have to debunk. Strength training not only is of injury prevention because it assists with building the muscles, tendons, and ligaments to withstand the stress of the sports. In addition, we know that the female population is more susceptible to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than their male counterparts. Fatigued lower limb muscles can inhibit the ability to control dynamic sports landing movements, increasing the risk of non-contact injury to the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), particularly among females. Prevention and prehabilitation is always better the rehabilitation. Strength training will improve performance and reduce injury if done correctly. If you look at Mia Hamm, Venus and Serna Williams, these athletes train with weights and have a great physique on and off the court.
4. You can’t train speed
For some reason it is a popular belief that you are born with a certain amount of ‘speed’ and you can’t improve it. If that’s the case than the Olympians that participate every four years waste their time throughout training to get better because they have nature born speed that will just come on when the touch foot on the track. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Speed is a skill that can be learned and the problem that I see with most young athletes is they are so physically weak and mechanically out of tune that significant improvements in speed can be made often just by working on technique and form. Athletes at any age and any level can improve speed when implementing a complete speed training program designed to improve and develop the entire athlete.
5. Training slow makes you fast
I don’t think coaches directly believe this way, but their training implies otherwise. I think they understand this when it comes to practicing for their sport for they know that in order for the athletes to get a true feel and understanding of what is required when in competition, the athlete must be put in ‘game speed’ situations so that their bodies are able to react. The same is true for speed training, in order for an athlete to be able to get faster, they must train their fast twitch muscle fibers consistently and properly so that they will be able to translate their training to the competition. Athletes must train how they play or train the way their sports demands of them. For example in sports that involve a higher aerobic element such as soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc. I see kids out running mileage and doing long slow intervals of several minutes of continuous running. If their goal is to get faster for the season and want to improve their overall speed and first step quickness to the ball, they must train their muscles to fire and work in the same manner that the demand will be placed on them for the sport. If you want athletes to improve their acceleration and top speed so they can get to the ball faster or get back on defense, then you have to train by running at full speed in practice.
6. You can train hard every day
Most coaches and parents understand this concept when it comes to strength training with training the same body part over and over. However, when it comes to speed training this concept gets thrown out the window for some reason. The workout itself is only a piece of the training puzzle. Just as with strength training, athlete’s muscles aren’t built in the weight room but during the recovery period, so is true with speed training. It is the time between intense workouts, the recovery, where athletes make their improvements. And generally it takes 36-48 hours to recover from high intensity training. If athletes are doing too much, too often they become over trained. Coaches can expect to see an increase in injuries, athletes complaining that they are sore more often, decreased performance, higher levels of fatigue earlier in games, and the BIG ONE—burnout. It’s always better to under train an athlete than over train. Err on the side of caution to get maximal results.
7. Strength training will stunt a young athlete’s growth
This is another myth held over from a different time. With parents having their kids participate in year round sports, strength training can assist with preventing some of the injuries that these athletes may be susceptible to with year round participation. These loads on the body can have a much greater physical impact than a well designed strength training program. Though I don’t usually begin training with weights with pre pubescent athletes, they can benefit from body weight exercises such as push ups, full body squats, pull ups, crunches, sit ups, etc. This will increase muscular efficiency, speed up recovery, improve coordination and overall speed.
8. The harder the workout, the better the result
Some athletes (and coaches) have this mentality that if a workout doesn’t reduce them to complete exhaustion and/or make them vomit, that it wasn’t an effective workout. I hated coaches that thought like this and now that I am a speed/ performance coach, I still hate it. The reasoning behind the vomiting is that the body is trying to buffer the blood due to it being too acidic and the lack of oxygen left for the muscles to use during the workout. Now that young athletes are dying due to myocarditis and other abnormal heart conditions, ‘old school’ coaches that have this mentality need not apply with working with youth athletes period. Also those who have this mentality probably see a lot of injuries and frustrating performances. The purpose of a workout is to stimulate an adaptation by the body. If the body is forced to do too much work in a given time period, it will break down. The skill in coaching is to stimulate the adaptation in the body, without reaching a point of diminishing returns.
9. Interval training is the same as speed training
Running repeat 100s, 200s, etc will not improve top speeds. Even running
repeat 40s with short recovery will not improve acceleration and top speeds. I wish someone had explained this myth and concept to my college coaches when they had us doing repeated 100s and 200s in the hot summer heat to improve our speed! Speed work is defined at 2-8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means at least 2 minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This
goes against the experience of some coaches, but simply put, is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they do not recover properly from each interval, they will not be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can not improve.
10. Flexibility won’t help you get faster
Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training and conditioning that they often forget a fundamental component of success: flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. Now is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. I see this often in the hips and hip flexors where athletes’ stride length appears conspicuously short. Most often I see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work. Hey I have been guilty of this one myself throughout the years of my high school and collegiate career.
11. Lift your knees
I hear so many parents and coaches yelling to their kids when they want them to run faster or when they are beginning to fatigue, “Lift your knees, Get your knees up”.
This is one of the most backwards cues you can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the more force you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give
back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of the glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed? Second, we’re cueing them and teaching a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age 7, to lift their knees when they need a burst of speed, that improper cue will be hardwired into their brain. To unlearn that as a teen and try to do the opposite and drive down, that athlete will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backwards. That’s why it is critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground, with the foot landing underneath the hip.
Speed/ Performance Coach and Speed Camps in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Dear Mr. Obama: Help our kids play
I thought since we all have been glued to the news rather you voted for the new President or not this past election, this blog post was appropriate for the occasion. It was taken from ESPN.com on my blackberry and it's an open letter to President Barack Obama. I hope you enjoy it.
Dear Mr. President:
Every 50 years or so since the rise of the U.S. as an industrial power, someone with your impending job title takes a hard look at the athletic activity of children.
He finds neglect and opportunity.
He takes action.
He leaves the nation -- and, ultimately, the sports nation -- in a better place.
Just over a century ago, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Ascending to the presidency at a time when America was about to make its play as leader of the free world, he didn't like what he saw happening with teenage boys. Roosevelt grew up an asthmatic, a sickly boy from polluted New York who made his body strong by embracing a life of vigorous exercise. He wrestled and lifted weights, and he boxed even after moving into the White House. He worried that the comforts of urban life had rendered middle- and upper-class boys soft and effeminate, raised, as many of them were, by their mothers. They hardly seemed fit, the way he saw it, to take over the businesses that their more manly fathers were hard at work creating. At the same time, the nation needed dependable laborers to pave the expansion into new markets. Sports, and team sports specifically, became seen as a way to indoctrinate immigrant boys into the ways of American capitalism. "Only aggressive sports can create the brawn, the spirit, the self-confidence, and quickness of men essential for the existence of a strong nation," Roosevelt roared.
Stirred, TR's contemporaries introduced organized sports to school systems in Gotham and other large cities. And they built thousands of playgrounds, green spaces where kids could get off the streets and get into games like baseball.
A half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower was fighting a Cold War that seemed as if it might turn hot on a moment's notice. As a former general, he knew that half of all men who had shown up at draft boards around the nation were considered physically unfit. And a study presented at the American Medical Association had shown that U.S. children were far more out of shape than their European peers. Over there, kids still walked or rode bikes to school and chopped wood for home heating. In the new suburban America, boys and girls were being driven everywhere. Home chores consisted of making their beds. As for school sports, they were focused on interscholastic competition, the province of the certified jock.
An alarmed Ike created in 1956 what ultimately became known as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which promoted physical education classes as early as first grade. Intramurals exploded, giving the less athletically gifted kid a chance to compete. Also, the groundwork was laid for passage a few years later of a federal program to help fund the construction or renovation of 40,000 parks and recreation centers in just about every county in the country. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with an exercise ethos, were the chief beneficiaries of these investments.
Your turn, No. 44.
I know you have a lot on your plate, between fixing the economy and smoking out bin Laden. But you've got a big brain, so let me introduce you to another mounting crisis that will require your leadership to solve: That of our sport system at its base. Maybe as you're trying to modernize our schools and mend our health care system, you can think about building in reforms to the opportunities our children have for physical activity.
From the top down, the system looks pretty good. Our pro leagues are thriving, as are the owners of their franchises. Our athletes are worldwide brands -- Kobe; A-Rod; Peyton Manning; the Williams sisters; and, especially, Tiger. From the window of an airplane, our mega-stadiums sparkle like 10-carat diamonds amid urban and college-town landscapes.
But viewed from the bottom up, the setup looks a lot more like the Wall Street we have come to know of late: a system compromised by greed and ignorance, in which the haves increasingly get rewarded at the expense of the have-nots, with the support of government.
To understand where the priorities lie today, start in America's largest burg. Last week, officials for the city and the New York Yankees were hauled before a state assembly committee to justify the most expensive stadium project in U.S. history. The $1.5 billion ballpark is being built on one of those historic playgrounds built a century ago, Macombs Dam Park, whose fields over the years have served countless youth and school teams in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. The city effectively gave a 22-acre parcel to the richest team in baseball, then allegedly jacked up the estimated value of the land to gain access to $940 million in federal tax-exempt bonds. Now the Yankees have been granted another $370 million in such bonds -- just weeks after signing Mark Teixeira and two other free agents for a combined $423 million.
The city promises to build a series of smaller replacement parks elsewhere. But some won't be ready for years, one will be on top of a parking garage, and another is in an industrial area far from the neighborhood. And we'll see what residents really get once the economy wreaks full havoc on city budgets.
"In New York City, 70 percent of kids are kicked to the curb at the end of the school day," said Al Bevilacqua, a wrestling coach whose nonprofit organization, Beat the Streets, is trying to reintroduce that sport to public schools using private funding. In the city that pioneered the uniquely American tradition of school sports, the options for many students are very limited. As an undergraduate at Columbia, you lived in New York long enough to get a sense of the experiential gap between that of a large public high school there and an elite private school such as the one you attended in Honolulu. Well, it's grown. Intramurals and quality P.E. classes are scarce, and only so many kids can make varsity basketball. Do you know how many U.S. Olympians the Big Apple sent to Beijing? Just eight. Four fencers, one boxer, one judoka, one riflewoman and one table tennis player originally trained in China.
Australia, which draws from a population only some two and a half times the size of New York City, won 46 medals.
Just about everywhere in America, inner-city kids struggle to find athletic opportunities. That's true even in places like Miami, with its reputation for producing elite football players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School won the mythical national championship in 2007 with a team that sent more than a dozen seniors to D-I programs, yet the school profile shows most students at the school couldn't pass the annual fitness exam. So is Northwestern a jock factory -- or a fitness flunkie?
You'd never know it from watching pro sports, in which African-American presence has grown, but black teenagers play sports less often than they did decades ago. In 1980, no ethnic group had a higher participation rate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. Not anymore. In fact, since then, no group has lost more participants. The obesity crisis is a national problem, but especially in black and Hispanic communities.
Those at the top of the sports pyramid aren't unaware of deficits at the bottom. Perhaps no league does more than the NFL, which has created an endowment that spends $25 million a year on refurbishing community football fields in distressed areas, according to a league spokesman. But such gifts are table scraps in the all-you-can-eat feast that is pro sports, where growth has been fueled by billions in public subsidies and tax advantages.
"They're more or less P.R. campaigns," says Scott Lancaster, who ran the NFL's youth programs for 12 years until 2007.
The NFL recently stopped funding one of its main youth programs. Junior Player Development, created by Lancaster, had helped repopularize football in poor urban areas by introducing the game to hundreds of thousands of kids through trained coaches. Many went on to play in college. Now the well-regarded program has been shut down, likely for good. The NFL cites the economy. Lancaster suspects it had more to do with posturing for negotiations with the players' union, a desire to plead poverty where none exists. "They've put youth in the middle and made it a victim," he says.
In tough times, sports funding for kids is always an easy cut. Even in the 'burbs now, school districts are talking about eliminating teams -- or even entire athletic programs. "You're going to see decisions made in the next two years that we've never seen made," one Connecticut high school athletic director told me. Youth sports in these communities will become further privatized, the realm of parents who can afford to sign their kids up for an endless slate of organized activities, from sport-specific camps to private lessons to travel teams with paid coaches.
It's hard to get your mind around how much the sports activity of children has changed since we were boys. As recently as the mid-1990s, the average age at which kids began to play organized sports was 8. Now, many start slipping on uniforms by 5, and after that you rarely see kids playing games without one. When my daughter was in second grade, there were girls on her rec league soccer team who were in their ninth season of soccer, having been signed up each fall, winter and spring since kindergarten (three seasons a year).
By third grade, in some sports, elite travel teams are being formed that stand apart from the in-town rec leagues that historically have provided opportunities for all kids. Ghettoized, the rec leagues begin to wither, while the travel kids go on to dominate varsity rosters. We're effectively holding high school tryouts now in grade school, sorting the weak from the strong before kids even hit puberty.
You seem like a man who can appreciate that youth sport is the most important institution in all of sports, because that's where the magic begins. It's where we learn to love these games, picking up fitness habits and rooting interests that can last a lifetime. But many kids start falling away from sports around age 11 now. The system has become less accessible to the late bloomer, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other: the clinically obese.
We also risk burning out the "winners" of this premature struggle. It's worth keeping in mind the modern cautionary tale of Elena Delle Donne, the 2008 national high school player of the year in girls basketball. Soon after arriving at UConn with a full ride, she quit the game, later explaining that she had stopped enjoying hoops back in middle school. All those AAU national championships, all those sessions with the personal trainer her parents had hired for her since second grade, led to no return on investment. She chose to walk on instead with a volleyball team at the University of Delaware, closer to home and friends.
Government policies have shaped this landscape. It's tempting to point to Title IX for the spread of scholarship mania among parents, as the amount of athletic aid handed out by NCAA programs has quadrupled since the early 1990s, to $1.5 billion annually. But that law also has been the greatest tool for growing participation since, well, the advent of organized youth sports, by forcing high schools and middle schools to create opportunities for girls.
It's clear that you, Barack, get that.
"I am the father of two young girls who are growing up playing sports and who are the beneficiaries of the doors Title IX opened," you said last year, signaling your intention to strengthen enforcement of the law down to the "pre-kindergarten" level.
Far more problematic is the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which charters the U.S. Olympic Committee and makes requirements of the national governing bodies of individual sports. The law asks that the USOC coordinate amateur sports activity in the country, but it's an unfunded mandate, a real bridge to nowhere (which was a specialty of its author, former Senator Ted Stevens). The USOC has focused its limited resources on the elite of the elite, making little effort to push coaches' education down to the youth level. In Europe, coaches are certified and trained in athlete development; here, the scene is dominated by millions of parent volunteers, well-meaning but winging it.
Attrition drops when coaches are trained in working with kids. It's been proven.
You are no doubt looking for ways to cut, not add to, the federal budget. But look at it this way: The economic consequences of Americans' physical inactivity are huge, costing more than $76 billion a year in direct medical costs alone, according to one academic study. Health care is a major priority of yours, with an emphasis on prevention. There's no better preventative care than finding a sport for life, like those weekly pickup hoop games you'll soon bring to the White House, Cabinet members in tow.
A bunch of your advisers got game, from education secretary nominee Arne Duncan (former Harvard co-captain) to attorney general nominee Eric Holder (former Columbia player) to brother-in-law Craig Robinson (current Oregon State men's coach). So get them in a huddle and come up with a new model for grassroots sports, built from the bottom up with a simple premise: sport as a human right, just like education. Here's how to do it:
• Offer incentives for schools to create more teams, not fewer, which is what is happening in the era of No Child Left Behind, with its strictly academic focus. The least that schools can do is modernize P.E. by connecting teens with local clubs that sponsor lesser-known sports in which they might find success. "You have to connect the national governing bodies with the schools," says Judy Young, a top expert on school-based sports. "Schools just can't teach the full array of 45 sports seen in the Olympics."
• Restore funding for urban parks and rec centers that have been gutted in recent years. Perhaps you can pay for it with a tax on the pro leagues that do business in these cities and whose empires have been built on the public dime.
• Rewrite the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act so that Job 1 for the USOC is tending to the base of the participation pyramid. While you're at it, enlist Larry Probst, its new chairman, who comes from the video game industry, to share what he knows about creating games that engage today's children. "A lot needs to be learned about making sports a contemporary experience for kids," says Lancaster, who while at the NFL experimented with hybrid games that married hand-held video with real play. "We're still asking them to play games the way their dads did a generation ago."
The key is getting progressive, not sentimental, about youth sports. Parents just aren't going to let their kid ride a bike halfway across town anymore to play sandlot ball, unsupervised. The murder of Adam Walsh changed all that.
And now, you can change it again, for the better. Imagine a Chicago Olympics in 2016 -- the first truly "Sport for All" Olympics, as you can pitch it when the host city is selected in October 2009, deploying an ideal celebrated by the IOC. An Olympics in which national governing bodies like U.S. Swimming and U.S. Badminton already are making new efforts to go into the inner city and get kids involved. An Olympics with a legacy of facilities that will benefit regular athletes, not just elites. An Olympics measured by growth in the number of Chicago kids who play sports into their teenage years and beyond. An Olympics that can cap your eight-year run as a president known for fresh ideas, with a statement in your adopted hometown about the possibilities of American sport.
The moment is there for the taking, Mr. Obama. It's one Teddy and Ike would surely seize.
Hope that gets you thinking.
Sincerely,
Tom Farrey
Tom Farrey is the author of "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," an exploration of the culture of modern youth sports. The book, his first, was recently named the 2008 Sports Education Book of the Year by the Institute of International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com
Youth Fitness Professional in Charlotte, NC
Dear Mr. President:
Every 50 years or so since the rise of the U.S. as an industrial power, someone with your impending job title takes a hard look at the athletic activity of children.
He finds neglect and opportunity.
He takes action.
He leaves the nation -- and, ultimately, the sports nation -- in a better place.
Just over a century ago, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Ascending to the presidency at a time when America was about to make its play as leader of the free world, he didn't like what he saw happening with teenage boys. Roosevelt grew up an asthmatic, a sickly boy from polluted New York who made his body strong by embracing a life of vigorous exercise. He wrestled and lifted weights, and he boxed even after moving into the White House. He worried that the comforts of urban life had rendered middle- and upper-class boys soft and effeminate, raised, as many of them were, by their mothers. They hardly seemed fit, the way he saw it, to take over the businesses that their more manly fathers were hard at work creating. At the same time, the nation needed dependable laborers to pave the expansion into new markets. Sports, and team sports specifically, became seen as a way to indoctrinate immigrant boys into the ways of American capitalism. "Only aggressive sports can create the brawn, the spirit, the self-confidence, and quickness of men essential for the existence of a strong nation," Roosevelt roared.
Stirred, TR's contemporaries introduced organized sports to school systems in Gotham and other large cities. And they built thousands of playgrounds, green spaces where kids could get off the streets and get into games like baseball.
A half-century later, Dwight Eisenhower was fighting a Cold War that seemed as if it might turn hot on a moment's notice. As a former general, he knew that half of all men who had shown up at draft boards around the nation were considered physically unfit. And a study presented at the American Medical Association had shown that U.S. children were far more out of shape than their European peers. Over there, kids still walked or rode bikes to school and chopped wood for home heating. In the new suburban America, boys and girls were being driven everywhere. Home chores consisted of making their beds. As for school sports, they were focused on interscholastic competition, the province of the certified jock.
An alarmed Ike created in 1956 what ultimately became known as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which promoted physical education classes as early as first grade. Intramurals exploded, giving the less athletically gifted kid a chance to compete. Also, the groundwork was laid for passage a few years later of a federal program to help fund the construction or renovation of 40,000 parks and recreation centers in just about every county in the country. Today's baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with an exercise ethos, were the chief beneficiaries of these investments.
Your turn, No. 44.
I know you have a lot on your plate, between fixing the economy and smoking out bin Laden. But you've got a big brain, so let me introduce you to another mounting crisis that will require your leadership to solve: That of our sport system at its base. Maybe as you're trying to modernize our schools and mend our health care system, you can think about building in reforms to the opportunities our children have for physical activity.
From the top down, the system looks pretty good. Our pro leagues are thriving, as are the owners of their franchises. Our athletes are worldwide brands -- Kobe; A-Rod; Peyton Manning; the Williams sisters; and, especially, Tiger. From the window of an airplane, our mega-stadiums sparkle like 10-carat diamonds amid urban and college-town landscapes.
But viewed from the bottom up, the setup looks a lot more like the Wall Street we have come to know of late: a system compromised by greed and ignorance, in which the haves increasingly get rewarded at the expense of the have-nots, with the support of government.
To understand where the priorities lie today, start in America's largest burg. Last week, officials for the city and the New York Yankees were hauled before a state assembly committee to justify the most expensive stadium project in U.S. history. The $1.5 billion ballpark is being built on one of those historic playgrounds built a century ago, Macombs Dam Park, whose fields over the years have served countless youth and school teams in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. The city effectively gave a 22-acre parcel to the richest team in baseball, then allegedly jacked up the estimated value of the land to gain access to $940 million in federal tax-exempt bonds. Now the Yankees have been granted another $370 million in such bonds -- just weeks after signing Mark Teixeira and two other free agents for a combined $423 million.
The city promises to build a series of smaller replacement parks elsewhere. But some won't be ready for years, one will be on top of a parking garage, and another is in an industrial area far from the neighborhood. And we'll see what residents really get once the economy wreaks full havoc on city budgets.
"In New York City, 70 percent of kids are kicked to the curb at the end of the school day," said Al Bevilacqua, a wrestling coach whose nonprofit organization, Beat the Streets, is trying to reintroduce that sport to public schools using private funding. In the city that pioneered the uniquely American tradition of school sports, the options for many students are very limited. As an undergraduate at Columbia, you lived in New York long enough to get a sense of the experiential gap between that of a large public high school there and an elite private school such as the one you attended in Honolulu. Well, it's grown. Intramurals and quality P.E. classes are scarce, and only so many kids can make varsity basketball. Do you know how many U.S. Olympians the Big Apple sent to Beijing? Just eight. Four fencers, one boxer, one judoka, one riflewoman and one table tennis player originally trained in China.
Australia, which draws from a population only some two and a half times the size of New York City, won 46 medals.
Just about everywhere in America, inner-city kids struggle to find athletic opportunities. That's true even in places like Miami, with its reputation for producing elite football players. Miami Northwestern Senior High School won the mythical national championship in 2007 with a team that sent more than a dozen seniors to D-I programs, yet the school profile shows most students at the school couldn't pass the annual fitness exam. So is Northwestern a jock factory -- or a fitness flunkie?
You'd never know it from watching pro sports, in which African-American presence has grown, but black teenagers play sports less often than they did decades ago. In 1980, no ethnic group had a higher participation rate, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. Not anymore. In fact, since then, no group has lost more participants. The obesity crisis is a national problem, but especially in black and Hispanic communities.
Those at the top of the sports pyramid aren't unaware of deficits at the bottom. Perhaps no league does more than the NFL, which has created an endowment that spends $25 million a year on refurbishing community football fields in distressed areas, according to a league spokesman. But such gifts are table scraps in the all-you-can-eat feast that is pro sports, where growth has been fueled by billions in public subsidies and tax advantages.
"They're more or less P.R. campaigns," says Scott Lancaster, who ran the NFL's youth programs for 12 years until 2007.
The NFL recently stopped funding one of its main youth programs. Junior Player Development, created by Lancaster, had helped repopularize football in poor urban areas by introducing the game to hundreds of thousands of kids through trained coaches. Many went on to play in college. Now the well-regarded program has been shut down, likely for good. The NFL cites the economy. Lancaster suspects it had more to do with posturing for negotiations with the players' union, a desire to plead poverty where none exists. "They've put youth in the middle and made it a victim," he says.
In tough times, sports funding for kids is always an easy cut. Even in the 'burbs now, school districts are talking about eliminating teams -- or even entire athletic programs. "You're going to see decisions made in the next two years that we've never seen made," one Connecticut high school athletic director told me. Youth sports in these communities will become further privatized, the realm of parents who can afford to sign their kids up for an endless slate of organized activities, from sport-specific camps to private lessons to travel teams with paid coaches.
It's hard to get your mind around how much the sports activity of children has changed since we were boys. As recently as the mid-1990s, the average age at which kids began to play organized sports was 8. Now, many start slipping on uniforms by 5, and after that you rarely see kids playing games without one. When my daughter was in second grade, there were girls on her rec league soccer team who were in their ninth season of soccer, having been signed up each fall, winter and spring since kindergarten (three seasons a year).
By third grade, in some sports, elite travel teams are being formed that stand apart from the in-town rec leagues that historically have provided opportunities for all kids. Ghettoized, the rec leagues begin to wither, while the travel kids go on to dominate varsity rosters. We're effectively holding high school tryouts now in grade school, sorting the weak from the strong before kids even hit puberty.
You seem like a man who can appreciate that youth sport is the most important institution in all of sports, because that's where the magic begins. It's where we learn to love these games, picking up fitness habits and rooting interests that can last a lifetime. But many kids start falling away from sports around age 11 now. The system has become less accessible to the late bloomer, the economically disadvantaged, the child of a one-parent household, the physically or mentally disabled, and the kid who needs exercise more than any other: the clinically obese.
We also risk burning out the "winners" of this premature struggle. It's worth keeping in mind the modern cautionary tale of Elena Delle Donne, the 2008 national high school player of the year in girls basketball. Soon after arriving at UConn with a full ride, she quit the game, later explaining that she had stopped enjoying hoops back in middle school. All those AAU national championships, all those sessions with the personal trainer her parents had hired for her since second grade, led to no return on investment. She chose to walk on instead with a volleyball team at the University of Delaware, closer to home and friends.
Government policies have shaped this landscape. It's tempting to point to Title IX for the spread of scholarship mania among parents, as the amount of athletic aid handed out by NCAA programs has quadrupled since the early 1990s, to $1.5 billion annually. But that law also has been the greatest tool for growing participation since, well, the advent of organized youth sports, by forcing high schools and middle schools to create opportunities for girls.
It's clear that you, Barack, get that.
"I am the father of two young girls who are growing up playing sports and who are the beneficiaries of the doors Title IX opened," you said last year, signaling your intention to strengthen enforcement of the law down to the "pre-kindergarten" level.
Far more problematic is the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which charters the U.S. Olympic Committee and makes requirements of the national governing bodies of individual sports. The law asks that the USOC coordinate amateur sports activity in the country, but it's an unfunded mandate, a real bridge to nowhere (which was a specialty of its author, former Senator Ted Stevens). The USOC has focused its limited resources on the elite of the elite, making little effort to push coaches' education down to the youth level. In Europe, coaches are certified and trained in athlete development; here, the scene is dominated by millions of parent volunteers, well-meaning but winging it.
Attrition drops when coaches are trained in working with kids. It's been proven.
You are no doubt looking for ways to cut, not add to, the federal budget. But look at it this way: The economic consequences of Americans' physical inactivity are huge, costing more than $76 billion a year in direct medical costs alone, according to one academic study. Health care is a major priority of yours, with an emphasis on prevention. There's no better preventative care than finding a sport for life, like those weekly pickup hoop games you'll soon bring to the White House, Cabinet members in tow.
A bunch of your advisers got game, from education secretary nominee Arne Duncan (former Harvard co-captain) to attorney general nominee Eric Holder (former Columbia player) to brother-in-law Craig Robinson (current Oregon State men's coach). So get them in a huddle and come up with a new model for grassroots sports, built from the bottom up with a simple premise: sport as a human right, just like education. Here's how to do it:
• Offer incentives for schools to create more teams, not fewer, which is what is happening in the era of No Child Left Behind, with its strictly academic focus. The least that schools can do is modernize P.E. by connecting teens with local clubs that sponsor lesser-known sports in which they might find success. "You have to connect the national governing bodies with the schools," says Judy Young, a top expert on school-based sports. "Schools just can't teach the full array of 45 sports seen in the Olympics."
• Restore funding for urban parks and rec centers that have been gutted in recent years. Perhaps you can pay for it with a tax on the pro leagues that do business in these cities and whose empires have been built on the public dime.
• Rewrite the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act so that Job 1 for the USOC is tending to the base of the participation pyramid. While you're at it, enlist Larry Probst, its new chairman, who comes from the video game industry, to share what he knows about creating games that engage today's children. "A lot needs to be learned about making sports a contemporary experience for kids," says Lancaster, who while at the NFL experimented with hybrid games that married hand-held video with real play. "We're still asking them to play games the way their dads did a generation ago."
The key is getting progressive, not sentimental, about youth sports. Parents just aren't going to let their kid ride a bike halfway across town anymore to play sandlot ball, unsupervised. The murder of Adam Walsh changed all that.
And now, you can change it again, for the better. Imagine a Chicago Olympics in 2016 -- the first truly "Sport for All" Olympics, as you can pitch it when the host city is selected in October 2009, deploying an ideal celebrated by the IOC. An Olympics in which national governing bodies like U.S. Swimming and U.S. Badminton already are making new efforts to go into the inner city and get kids involved. An Olympics with a legacy of facilities that will benefit regular athletes, not just elites. An Olympics measured by growth in the number of Chicago kids who play sports into their teenage years and beyond. An Olympics that can cap your eight-year run as a president known for fresh ideas, with a statement in your adopted hometown about the possibilities of American sport.
The moment is there for the taking, Mr. Obama. It's one Teddy and Ike would surely seize.
Hope that gets you thinking.
Sincerely,
Tom Farrey
Tom Farrey is the author of "Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children," an exploration of the culture of modern youth sports. The book, his first, was recently named the 2008 Sports Education Book of the Year by the Institute of International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. Tom can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com
Youth Fitness Professional in Charlotte, NC
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The 3 Common Mistakes with Running Form for Youth Athletes
You probably have noticed in recent years that sports teams are focused on speed, speed, and more speed. It's not surprising that parents and coaches of youth athletes now want their youth athletes to get faster. Runners who competed in track during club, high school, and university are lucky to have a coach early in their running career, critiquing form and offering pointers for more efficient running. Those who don’t run competitively may never receive any tips on form from a coach or a professional runner. During the years, I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of athletes ranging from youth all the way to collegiate and semi-professional with regards to enhancing their performance on the court/field.
Running seems simple in theory, but yet complex with application. I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of different athletes from a variety of different backgrounds and sports. From youth aging from 6 to 46, from youth to semi-professional, from males to females and what I have found is that they all have the same common issues with dealing with running. Breaking bad habits in an athlete’s running form isn’t easy; it takes years of practice before the athlete learns the proper form for running. Even though running is primarily a lower-body activity, your arms aren't just along for the ride!
Arms should be held low, bent at a 90-degree angle and relaxed. As you run, swing your arms up and down. The term I use is “elbow/ uppercut”. The analogy that I use is the athlete envisions themselves elbowing the air with the downswing, bringing them back behind your body, brushing them past their waistband, and upper cutting the air at the top of the swing. The arm movement should be just that — arm movement — and should minimize the rotation of the torso. Arms should move in conjunction with their legs. The majority of the motion should take place in the shoulder (deltoids) with regards to the arm swing. The athlete, if performing the motion correctly, will feel it there instead of any other place.
There are 3 common mistakes that must runners encounter when running. They are the train, the twist, and the drummer. These are some terms that I use with my athletes when teaching them the improper arm swing form with running.
The locomotion/ train: The arms are held too high when the athlete runs. During this illustration, the athlete swings outward in a jabbing motion similar to imitating a train going down the tracks. The majority of the motion is incorrect during the top swing in which the athlete’s arms are fully extended outward.
The twist: The arms are maximizing during the rotation of the torso. Image there is an invisible zipper that runs down the middle of the athlete’s body separating the left side from the right. The athlete during “the twist” will rotate across the imaginary zipper and perform a twisting motion, the athlete’s arms cross their body, between waist and lower-chest level. As a result, the athlete looks as if they are twisting when they are running.
The drummer: The arms are held too low when the athlete runs. During this illustration, the athlete’s arms are bent at a 90-degree angle, but instead the extension happens during the downswing, at the waist. The athlete extends their arms at the elbow as if they are trying to receive a baton pass from a sprinter coming up from behind them. The athlete is looked upon as beating a drum when they are running.
Remember, it’s not easy to break old habits, and athletes run the way they do because their body has found it efficient, and it’s now probably become a habit. To make their new effort a habit, practice concentrating on their new running style for a few minutes at a time.
Youth Speed/ Strength Coach in Charlotte, NC
Monday, January 5, 2009
Women And Sports: The Building Blocks Of A Positive, Confident Person
She isn't the only female that I have noticed this correlation of sports and confidence with either. My little sister has played numerous of sports while growing up. She started with basketball in middle school, then transitioned over to soccer and tennis in high school. She went to college as a walk-on in tennis and later was awarded a tennis scholarship the following year.
There are many benefits that females receive from participating in athletics. In this blog today we will briefly go over some of them as to encourage those that are reading that may be on the fence to participate or to allow their daughters to participate in athletics.
Benefits of Females In Sport
Not long ago, being serious about sports was considered appropriate only for men and boys". Throughout the 20th century, women's increasing participation in sports has challenged our conception of womanhood. In the post-Title IX era, female participation in sport has skyrocketed. In 1970, one in every twenty-seven girls played high school varsity sports; compared to one in three today. Overall, women currently outnumber men as active sports/fitness participants. Sports have many more positive effects on women than are recognized in our everyday lives. Sports are not only positive physically, but they are also very important for the psychological and social well-being of women in today's world.
Studies have shown that sports participation for girls has significant health implications:
• Sports and other exercise helps to lay down bone mass. Therefore sports can be an influence over the prevention of osteoporosis.
• Girls that participate in as little as two hours a week of exercise can reduce her risk of breast cancer.
• High school girls who participate in sports are less likely to experience unwanted pregnancy and more likely to graduate
• They have a higher self esteem and a higher level of confidence and lower levels of depression
• They have a more positive self image and experience higher states of psychological well-being than those that don't participate in sports
Girls and Women Need Encouragement and Aspirational Role Models
Many people think that girls are not as interested in sport as boys. Women's Sports Foundation research shows that boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 9 -- and their parents -- are equally interested in sports participation. However, by the age of 14, girls drop out of sport at a rate that is six times greater than boys. Girls and women simply do not receive the same positive reinforcement about their sports participation. Boys receive balls, gloves and sports equipment by the age of two. They see their images on television as sportsmen, they see their photos in the sports section and know from their parents and friends that they are expected to play sports.
So what must be done to alleviate this problem?
We must do a better job of supporting our daughters' sports participation. For Christmas and birthdays, we must find books about girls in sports, give gifts of sports equipment and sports lessons. We need to take our sons and daughters to see women playing sports so they grow up appreciating and respecting the sports skills of women and so our daughters see images of themselves excelling in sports -- because she is not going to see those images on television or in the newspapers. It's no accident that girls' sports participation in Olympic sports increases significantly following the Olympic Games, one of the few times that coverage of women's sports is equal to that of men's sports. Aspirational role models drive youth demand for sports. This top to bottom synergy has not yet become commonplace in women's sports because of limited college and professional sports opportunities and television coverage.
However, the trend is clear: the increased participation and success of female athletes equates to a healthier more productive female in society. Not only will she be a force on the playing field/ court, but once she takes the sneakers, cleats, etc. off she will also be able to contribute and be a force in our community. I think with the raise in female coverage and participation "We ain't seen nothin' yet! Bust that ceiling open.-Girl Power"
Reference:
Women's Sports Foundation. http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Top 5 Sports Every Child Should Play
When I work with youth athletes the main stories that usually have me cringe and run for cover deal with the adults (coaches and parents).
The first scenario deals with the over-zealous, poorly educated coach that prides his program or team on how many wins or league championships that he has taken then to thus robbing the kid of a great experience and potentially being one of the factors that cause the kid to drop out early in that particular sport never to play again. Instead, less focus should be placed on the outcomes of the sports (though we do want our athletes to develop that drive to be the best that they possibly can be without developing a quitter's attitude), and more focus should be placed on teaching and instructing the proper way to play the sport and building a firm foundation not only physically but mentally by addressing the motor skills needed at that particular age.
Coaches are so often limited in their knowledge about the necessary building blocks needed for physical success for the age group that they are coaching. In many cases, they are just volunteers, who may have had some experience with sports because they either played or watched the game and have been asked by the head of the organization to coach the team because no one else is proficient enough to take on the task. Less time is spent on building a foundation of motor skill development and addressing the bio-mechanical needs of the group, while more time is spent on drilling the kids with age-inappropriate drills that usually predispose the child to learning the technique wrong (in which most cases an expert has to re-teach the drill correctly) or predispose the child to injury.
The second most common scene is the parents who are way too invested in the success of their kid. They either themselves are constantly training their kid, or the kid is participating year round in sport. Many children today start specializing in one sport way too early -- playing year-round, joining competitive club or travel teams and participating in specialized training programs -- believing they'll put themselves on the fast track to college scholarships or maybe even a pro sports career.
But for too many of these kids, that fast track leads straight to injuries, sometimes serious ones. More concentration should be on allowing the kid to participate in as many different sports as possible so that it exposes them to a variety of motor skills and different presentations/ situations for those motor skills.
A story was once told to me about a parent who had their kid participating in baseball. This kid played pitcher. The parents were so invested in wanting their kid to be the best in town that they had enrolled him into three different leagues simultaneously in three different towns that were in close proximity with one another. The kid would play the first game, hop in the car drive over to the next town and pitch in second game. Once the second game was over, he would participate as the starting pitcher in the final game one town over. When the story was presented to me, the storyteller posed the question should this be considered a form of 'child abuse'? Of course, this story is extreme but my point is that year round training exactly stunts the growth of the athlete in the long run because it can predispose them to detrimental outcomes (1) burn out/ early drop out which could result in being turned off to fitness altogether and (2) overuse injuries i.e. Little Leaguer's Elbow.
Youth sports have become big business in this country. If you don't believe me, then turn on your television, you can find some type of sporting event sponsored by some big corporation promoting the youth event. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer that sports are one of the best tutors to nurture and develop kids into becoming great leaders and possessing great skills sets that can be utilized over a lifetime; however, the emphasis should not be placed on the wins and loses. The emphasis should be on developing a 'global' athlete and preparing them for the next phase in their athletic career.
My athletic career is similar to the above. I loved to play football. I couldn't get enough of it. Even though, some of my best experience during the years was learned playing football, I truly felt as if I was underdeveloped as an athlete skill wise when transitioning from one competitive level to the next. It was seen when I moved from Pop Warner to high school football. I had to learn twice as hard as my teammates because I couldn’t comprehend and demonstrate the necessary skill sets needed to play on the high school level. While playing Pop Warner, the coaches' main focus was outcome driven- going to the next bowl game or trying to have a perfect season. Less time was spent on the fundamentals of football i.e. receiving a hand off properly from the line of scrimmage or switching the ball from one hand to the other properly. I just couldn't do it. So, I had to practice and teach myself the fundamentals during the off-season or after practice so that I could compete and keep up with my teammates. Likewise, the same happened when I transitioned from high school to college (which I was constantly reminded daily by my college defensive back coach). There were areas that my college coaches were amazed (and usually frustrated with me) because I couldn't perform. As you know, on this stage the stakes are the highest and usually patience for error is at a all time low. The end result cost me playing time and even scholarship money. I always felt like the kid that had to "catch up" with learning the skills needed to excel not only in the sport but excel at the position that I was playing. This is the reason why when I train youth today, the majority of my coaching style is based upon teaching the fundamentals needed to not only excel with performance at the current level, but be a ‘global’ athlete with a strong foundation of motor skills.
So what sports should a young athlete start off participating in?
Here are the top 5 sports that a young athlete should play early on:
5. Martial arts-not for the brutal or self defense component, but to stimulate their mind and teach self discipline (which is important in sport and life), balance, spatial awareness, coordination development, as well as overall fitness.
Here is a mock annual calendar for the youth athlete:
Summer-Dance/gymnastics
Fall-Soccer
Winter-Indoor Swimming
Spring-Martial Arts/ Tennis
Parents should seek out a programs, performance coaches/trainers, and/or coaches that expose their child to a wide variety of components in motor skill development. They should enroll their children in seasonal sports instead of year-round programs geared towards one sport. If parents keep to a schedule as the above then they will alleviate a lot of the risk discussed in this article (1) their athlete will stay stimulated and engaged because of the constant change in activity. (2) injury due to overuse injuries is minimized. (3) the child is able to develop the motor skills needed to become a 'global' athlete which spells FUTURE SUCCESS.
Until next time, keep playing and keep active.
Reference: Brian Grasso http://www.DevelopingAthletics.com
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC
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