Strength development for athletic performance is one of the most overused and misunderstood tools there is. While it is true that strength training has the most potential to do good for an athlete, by natural law, it has the most potential to do harm as well.
This ax doesn’t just swing one way. Coaches and parents who are completely against strength training are just as dangerous. To make sure you have all the information you need to make great decisions about your athletes, we are going to give you FIVE nonnegotiables for strength development in athletes.
To fully understand endurance training, you must understand the different means in which it can be accomplished. Some people believe endurance work is super long sessions on a piece of cardio equipment or really long runs. While this can be part of a complete endurance program, it is definitely not where most people should start or what their entire program should consist of.
What metrics do you use to determine if you or your child is getting great training?
With the promise of a new American Girl doll, my 9-year-old daughter can easily give any athlete a workout that will be super hard, have continual movement, and be really fun.
If my young child can accomplish the indicators by which you measure great training, don’t you think it’s time to rethink your metrics?
We have all seen the fancy marketing videos for “speed training”. Speed ladders, training in the sand, and a million different cone drills run one right after another.
The problem is, none of the activities listed above actually build any speed.
In this blog, we will walk you through the different types of speed, how they are trained, and most importantly, how we measure them to know if the athlete is actually getting faster.
If you see what floats around social media, you’ve probably heard one, if not both, of two extremes. Something along the lines of “EVERYONE should stretch EVERYTHING, EVERY day,” or gaining more popularity these days something like this… “Stretching is useless, and carries no benefit. Have you ever seen a dog stretch before it chases a squirrel?” For starters, I watch my dog stretch his legs every time he gets off the ground, but that’s besides the point. You and I have enough common sense to know there’s a pretty significant difference of anatomy and physiology between myself and my dog.
The ability to focus during a game directly correlates to the athletes mindset towards the activity. Webster's dictionary defines mindset as “the established set of attitudes held by someone.” For competitive athletes we have to take that one step further, not only is mindset the attitudes held by the athlete toward a game, but their sport in general AND the attitudes toward training for that particular sport.
Shin splints can be an extremely frustrating injury for runners to deal with! Not only can they derail your upcoming race but they can cause you to quit running all together! A common mistake that runners make is that they treat their symptoms instead of identifying and addressing the true cause of their injury. There are many factors that can contribute to shin splints but most often they can be traced back to excessive overload and poor running mechanics. If you are a runner and you are experiencing lower leg pain, please read on for some tips that will help resolve your pain and get back to running!
In life, there are two constant forces; they are both positively inescapable and destructive by their very nature. The first is Time, which I humbly propose no solution for. The other is Gravity, which, despite being constant and universal, can affect us differently over time depending on our body’s structural alignment.
When I was a beginning lifter, I made a ton of mistakes that I am trying to help you avoid. One of the biggest that I wish I could go back and change, is testing my max every week. You need to understand that getting stronger doesn’t happen under maximal loads or by maxing out all the time, it happens by being consistent with submaximal loads. This takes patience, it isn’t sexy, but it is how real results and strength gains happen and in this article I am going to tell you where I went wrong and how you can learn from my mistakes.
Research suggests there is a major connection between those who suffer from non-specific chronic low back pain and the ability to breathe properly. This relationship becomes a constant cycle—weakened core muscles and therefore the inability to stabilize the trunk (specifically the lumbar spine), which causes a dysfunction of the diaphragm and results in chronic low back pain.
The necessity and demand for a program like this was clear both from a coaching and a parenting perspective. As coaches at The Spot Athletics, we work with youths and adolescents and see a common trend among them. Many of these athletes come into our facility lacking proficiency in foundational movement skills such as running, jumping, throwing, and kicking.
