Athletic Performance Toolbox

Speed Training

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This article was provided by Training-Conditioning

The 60-yard sprint is a great way to measure speed and assess running mechanics. Longer than most typical sprints, it challenges athletes in different ways and will help you identify where their running needs to improve.

The following tips from Nick Brattain in a blog for the International Youth Conditioning Association, outline how to get the most out of this exercise.

Front Side Mechanics

Many athletes lack proper front side mechanics when they get into an upright running position. Front side mechanics refers to the movements that occur in front of the body during running, which includes the knee driving up and down, as well as the arm swinging in front of the body. More time is spent in the upright position during the 60-yard sprint compared with other shorter sprints. Therefore, coaches need to take time during training to help athletes perfect these important mechanics.

“As the athlete transitions from the acceleration phase into the upright position there is a lot of room for error,” writes Brattain, a former All-American track athlete and current owner of Brattain Sports Performance. “The body, from shoulder to hip, should move as one unit from the forward, acceleration posture into more of an upright position. There should be very little to no flexion or extension within the spine through this transition.”

Poor transition into the upright position can result in improper balance and tilt in the hips. This can limit the knee’s ability to drive and reposition, which will in turn limit the amount of force an athlete can exert with each stride. Athletes should also avoid rotating their hips from side to side as they plant each foot. This will put excessive force and stress on the hips and lower spine.

Supportive Strength

Athletes will need to build the necessary strength in order to maximize their linear sprinting ability. Some athletes are more agility based and will have a tougher time sprinting in a straight line for 60 yards. Consider the sport and position of each athlete, and identify the muscles they will need to strengthen in order to improve their running mechanics. If they have muscular weaknesses, their sprinting will suffer.

“These muscular weaknesses manifest themselves in improper movement patterns such as lack of extension at the hip, knee, or ankle, internal or external rotation at the hip following toe off, or rotation in the hips as the approach foot contacts the ground,” writes Brittain. “Each of these issues can be addressed and resolved with proper strength and technical training.”

Speed Endurance

Especially with a longer run like the 60-yard sprint, many athletes lack the endurance to finish the sprint strong or do multiple reps. Sprint endurance refers to an athlete’s ability to reach maximum velocity and maintain it for a set period of time before decelerating. Ideally, athletes will be able to maintain maximum velocity until the end of the sprint and then continue to do this for multiple reps. But it usually takes some work to get there.

Improving speed endurance doesn’t require running long distances. On the contrary, athletes should focus on running distances less than 30 meters at maximum speed. To train for the 60-yard sprint, have athletes run 20-40 yards through 4-10 reps. Also consider having them do reps while holding a PVC pipe over head to promote proper posture and front side mechanics. With the right training, your athletes will be able to run faster and maintain max speed for longer

Phases of Off Season Training

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Young athletes need to spend a portion of their year focusing on their body. The off season is critical to the overall success of the athlete. In this post you will see how to divide off season training into distinct phases.

In the video clip below  Angleo Gingerelli, Seton Hall Strength and Conditioning Coach, discusses the need for off season training as well as how he divides the off season into three phases. The clip is from a Glazier Athletic Performance Clinic.

Coach Gingerelli begins by stating how important training is for young athletes. He believes that athletes must continue to train through certain events/competitions. He also believes that it is important to declare an off season or a time of the year where their focus is on improving their bodies. He points out that not every “Body” is suited for year around competition and that while skill development is important, there is no substitute for bigger, faster stronger.

Here is a summary of Coach Gingerelli’s 3 Phases of Off Season Training and the emphasis in each phase:

Phase 1 – Basics

  • Flexibility and Range of motion
  • Body Weight Control (push-up, pull-ups, body weight squats etc..)
  • Balance, Posture and Biomechanics of basic body movements
  • Core Development
  • Work Capacity
  • Being comfortable being uncomfortable

Phase 2 Weight Room Basics

  • Squats
  • Bench
  • Deadlift (variations)
  • Shrugs
  • Overhead Press (limited and must be done properly)

Phase 3

  • Plyometrics
  • Olympic Lifts
  • Single Leg and Single Arm Movements
  • Maximum Effort Sets
  • Complexes, Supersets, Circuits

This clip is just a portion of Coach Gingerelli’s presentation. For information about how to gain access to the rest of his presentation as well as hundreds of other clinic presentation click the link Glazier Athletic Performance Clinic

The YouTube video below has audio, so please make sure that your volume is turned up and that you have access to the site. Note that some schools block access to YouTube.

Tips for Goal Setting

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This article was provided by InnerDrive, a mental skills training company

Goals are important if your athletes are to be successful. They are also important for you and your career. In this post get 11 ways to improve your goal setting.

HOW TO DO GOAL SETTING RIGHT

Why do so many people mess up goal-setting? Maybe it’s because goal-setting research has been around for so many years that different suggestions are being made left, right and centre (often with too many acronyms). This causes mixed messages and it just ends up confusing everyone. To combat this, this blog looks at what the science tells us about what actually works in goal setting, and simply suggests simple ways to do goal setting right.

HAVE BOTH LONG & SHORT TERM GOALS

Long term goals can help improve your focus, motivation and meaning. Focusing on a long term goal can help you overcome the minor setbacks that inevitably happen along the way.

Setting shorter term goals (i.e. what you need to do this week) can help break down a seemingly impossible and distant goal into more tangible simple steps. These small steps can help keep you on the right path and provide short term incentives and accomplishments.

MAKE IT CHALLENGING

If you consistently set goals that you know you can already achieve, you are limiting how much you could potentially improve. You will not be giving yourself the motivation to work any harder than you already are. That is why it is important to make your goals challenging, as this will encourage you to apply more effort, giving you a higher sense of accomplishment once the goal has been reached.

JOINT GOALS

How to do goal setting rightGoals that are co-created and agreed between the teacher and student, or the coach and athlete, encourage a sense of ownership. This also has the benefit of letting people know that they are supported, which is needed to excel in pressurised situations.

Feeling supported is a big part of how Olympic gold medallists develop their resilience. In addition, team sports should set team goals as well as personal ones, as this will help them work together collectively to reach their shared goal.

CONSIDER OBSTACLES

A new area of research into goal setting is investigating how thinking about potential obstacles can help people achieve their goals. This may sound negative, but it actually isn’t, as long as it is followed by a conversation about how they will overcome these barriers.

Research suggests that only thinking about the positives can do more harm than good, with these people doing worse in sticking to a diet, reducing their motivation and performing worse in exams.

WHAT IS THE WHY?

Understanding what your “why” is, and the importance behind your goals, can really help. Research suggests that getting students to identify why they are doing a task can help increase their motivation and engagement as well as how much they learn. You can read more about these studies here.

MAKE IT SPECIFIC

Try to avoid vague terms when setting goals as this makes it harder to monitor the progress. Aiming to be better is a good thing. Clearly identifying which areas you want to improve is better. These sort of goals can play a key role in helping students develop their metacognition and self-regulation.

FOCUS ON SKILLS

For continuous personal growth and progress, setting goals that focus on improving your skills (and not just on what you want to achieve) will help. Most of the time the end outcome relies on being able to execute your skills under pressure. So make that what you are focusing on. As legendary American Football coach Bill Walsh used to say, the score will take care of itself.

BE FLEXIBLE

We can’t always predict how a situation may unfold, or have things happen the exact way we want them to. If the situation changes, goals may need to be tweaked. Monitoring, tweaking and amending your goals is the hallmark of a mature learner and leader. This will help maintain your motivation over long periods of time.

SHARE YOUR GOALS

Sharing your goals and aims with others can help. If other people know about them, they may be able to help you. An outsider may come up with different and better ways to reach certain goals, ways that you may have overlooked before. Social support has been found to be highly valuable in both sport (and we think in education too). Therefore, don’t be afraid to share your goals and ask for help.

ENSURE THERE IS TRUST

Trust is a big mediator of behaviour. In a famous study, participants were told not to eat the marshmallow in front of them. If they could wait for a while, they would be rewarded with two marshmallows. Those that did not trust the person giving them the instruction were only able to wait for 3 minutes before giving in to temptation; whereas, those that trusted the instructor were able to hold out for over 12 minutes. If people don’t believe what they are being told, their motivation and determination to achieve a goal will suffer.

MONITOR PROGRESS

Monitoring your goals is an important process as it helps to ensure that your goals are translated into action. Monitoring progress needs to occur frequently. It is easy to start with good intentions, but when left alone, people often fall back into old habits. That’s what makes monitoring your goals such an effective strategy.

FINAL THOUGHT

Goal setting doesn’t need to be seen as such a daunting task. In the past, when done wrong, it can actually demotivate people. The above simple tips offer an idea of how to effectively set targets. Goal setting should be a continuous process. If there is flexibility, short and long term goals, that focus on developing skills that are monitored and supported by others, it should help.

For even more info take a look at our page How to Improve Metacogntion, where you’ll find links to blogs and research.

We would like to thank Kate Lord for her great work in helping us write this blog. She is a great addition to our research team. You can follow her on twitter @kateemilylord

Training for Speed

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Speed definitely has a genetic component, but you can definitely enhance an athlete’s speed with proper training. In this post you will three strength training in drills designed to improve speed.

In the clip below Barry Kagan (C.S.C.S., L.M.T., R.N.) earned a Master’s Certification from the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in 2008, a private practice strength and conditioning coach;
former University of Maryland Strength Coach, discusses stride frequency and stride length and the role that fulfill in producing speed.  He also offers three exercises that are designed to improve speed.

While stride frequency ( how quickly your foot can strike the ground over and over) has a large genetic component, technique training can help to make that process more efficient. Stride length is how much distance that you cover and it is heavily influenced by training.  Strength and power training can have a tremendous effect on an athlete’s stride length and thus his/her speed. This is done through resistance training. Whether it is in the weight room, using bands, running hills etc…. , strength and power training will increase your stride length and therefore your speed.

In this clip from Coach Kragan’s training DVD he shares three exercises to help develop speed. The three exercises that he demonstrates are:

  1. Broad Jump followed by a Tuck Jump
  2. Single Leg Broad Jump
  3. Single Leg Tuck Jumps.

These exercises are taken from his DVD entitled Sport Performance Preparation: Fit, Fast & Flexible – Drills for Year-Round Performance Training. This video can offer year round preparation for multitudes of sports in ALL AREAS of Strength and Conditioning. For more information click the link above.

The YouTube video below has audio, so please make sure that your volume is turned up and that you have access to the site. Note some schools block access to YouTube. If you are having trouble viewing from school, please contact you network administrator.

 

For more information about Coach Kagan’s year around complete training program click the image below

Which Athletes are Risk for Knee Injuries

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Preventing knee injuries are important for all athletes. In this post see data the indicates which sports and specific activities produce the most knee injuries.

This article was provided by Training-Conditioning

Each month, The Center for Injury Research and Policy at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital provides T&C with an inside look at their studies of high school athletic injuries. In this installment, Dawn Comstock, PhD, takes a look at knee injuries, examining gender-specific trends and breaking down each sport’s most common mechanisms of injury.
Athletes often devote hours to strengthening their legs and increasing knee flexibility, hoping not only to excel at their sport, but also prevent a season-ending knee injury. And athletes have good reason: knee injuries are one of the most common sports injuries, with U.S. doctors and surgeons treating over half a million high school student-athlete knee injuries every year. They are also among the most costly, and knee injuries account for almost half of all surgeries performed among high school athletes.

The National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study, in its third year of data collection, has found that high school athletes sustain approximately one knee injury in every 2,500 exposures. As one might expect, risk of knee injuries varies by sport and whether an athlete is practicing or competing. Here are some important facts on knee injury incidence:

• Knee injuries are three times more likely to occur during competition than practice.
• Football players are at greatest risk for knee injury–on any given day, for every 460 athletes playing in a football game, one will sustain a knee injury.
• Among girls, soccer players are at greatest risk for knee injury–on any given day, for every 850 female athletes playing in a soccer game, one will sustain a knee injury.
• Girls participating in soccer, basketball, and softball are about 50 percent more likely to sustain knee injuries than boys playing these same sports.

Athletes dread knee injuries because they can signal a premature end to their season, particularly if a knee ligament is torn. The National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study has found that incomplete ligament tears (32 percent), contusions (15.2 percent), complete ligament tears (13.2 percent), and torn cartilage (eight percent) are the most common knee injuries. While 43 percent of athletes sustaining a knee injury are able to return to play that same week, 30 percent miss at least three weeks of play or are forced to discontinue the season. This rate is particularly high in girls’ basketball, where half of all injured players miss at least three weeks of play or are forced to discontinue the season. Following a knee injury, 25 percent of all girls and 12 percent of all boys require surgery. Overall, knee injuries commonly result from contact with another person (52 percent), no contact/overuse mechanisms (25 percent), and contact with playing surfaces (15 percent).

While knee injuries will never be completely eliminated, sports injury surveillance can help trainers and coaches develop sport-specific strategies to decrease their athletes’ risk for knee injuries. Here is what the latest research shows us regarding which activities are most commonly cited in a knee injury event:

Football
• Being tackled (27 percent)
• Being blocked (19 percent)
• Blocking (15 percent)
• Tackling (13 percent)

Boys’ Soccer
• General play (23 percent)
• Ball handling/dribbling (20 percent)
• Receiving a slide tackle (10 percent)

Girls’ Soccer
• General play (23 percent)
• Ball handling/dribbling (16 percent)
• Defending (15 percent)
• Chasing a loose ball (13 percent)

Girls’ Volleyball
• Digging (31 percent)
• Blocking (16 percent)
• Setting (15 percent)

Boys’ Basketball
• General play (24 percent)
• Rebounding (21 percent)
• Defending (15 percent)
• Ball handling/dribbling (11 percent)
• Chasing a loose ball (10 percent)

Girls’ Basketball
• General play (24 percent)
• Defending (17 percent)
• Rebounding (17 percent)
• Ball handling/dribbling (16 percent)

Wrestling
• Takedown (57 percent)
• Sparring (20 percent)

Baseball
• Fielding (32 percent)
• Running bases (25 percent)
• Sliding (20 percent)
• Catching (10 percent)

Softball
• Sliding (29 percent)
• Fielding (16 percent)
• Batting (15 percent)

Dawn Comstock, PhD, is a principle investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is also an assistant professor at The Ohio State University in the College of Medicine and the College of Public Health. Her research interests include the epidemiology of sports, recreation, and leisure activity-related injuries among children and adolescents as well as the life-long health benefits associated with an active childhood. She can be reached at Dawn.Comstock@NationwideChildrens.org.