Athletic Performance Toolbox

Shoulder Exercises for Shot Putters

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To be effective throwing the shot. Shot Putters must develop great technique. Whether it be the glide or the spin, there are basic fundamentals that must be mastered. In addition, to throw the shot effectively one must posses strength in the entire body. The legs the core the arms and shoulder are all critical in providing the power needed to throw the shot.

In the video clip below Guatemala National Team throwing coach Erin Wibbels shows to drills that will focuses on increasing athletes balance, core and shoulder strength. The clip is from a DVD that also covers the fundamentals of the glide and the spin in addition to a variety of medicine ball drills. For more information about the DVD click the link Becoming a Champion: Glide & Spin Shot Put for Girls’ Track & Field

The YouTube video below has sound, so please make sure that your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site (Some schools block access to YouTube)

The two medicine ball drills demonstrated are both single arms drills and there for a 3-6 lb ball is recommended.

The first drill is called Popcorn.

The athlete will stand in front of a wall with a 3-6 lb med ball. The ball is placed overhead. Keeping the elbow straight, the athlete will stretch back from the shoulder and bounce the ball off the wall and catch it. The athlete should remain balanced at all times. The drill will work the muscles of the shoulder as well as the core. 10-20 repetitions are recommended for each arm depending on the conditioning and strength level of the athlete.

The second drill is called Kettle Corn

Very similar to popcorn. The medicine ball is held overhead while standing near a wall. With the elbow straight the ball is bounced off the wall. However, in this drill the athlete will slowly lower their arm to the side will bouncing the ball off the wall. If you imagine the starting position as 12 o’clock then they will slowly lower their arm to the 3 o’clock position. Again this is done while bouncing the med ball off the wall with the elbow straight. Be sure to tell the athlete to keep their weight evenly distributed between their legs. They will have a tendency to lean on to their right leg when the ball is in the 3 o’clock position,

Repeat with the other arm moving slowly from 12 o’clock to 9 o’clock position

Plyometric Exercises for Volleyball

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Plyometric exercises for volleyball players can certainly help to improve their vertical jump. In the video clip below Penn State University head strength and conditioning coach, Cameron Davidson, demonstrates plyometric exercises for volleyball players using hurdles that generates explosiveness and core strength.

Keep in mind that in order to reap the maximum benefits of plyometric exercises, volleyball players should first develop a basic level of strength by participating in a sport specific resistance training program. Doing plyometric exercises without first developing basic strength will greatly reduce the benefits of doing plyometric exercises.

For more information the DVD that this clip from click the link 150 Strength and Conditioning Exercises for Volleyball and learn how Coach Davidson trains the powerful Penn State Volleyball Team.

The YouTube video has sound, so please make sure that the sound is turned on and that you have access to the site (Some schools block access to YouTube)

The following is a summary of the Plyometric Exercises for Volleyball Players as presented by Cameron Davidson, Penn State head strength and conditioning coach.

1. Forward Jump Pauses

Players jump up and over the hurdle. The land in squat position and stay in that position until the coach signals them to jump over the next hurdle.

Key coaching points include: Push your feet into the ground and swing, or cycle your arms

2. Continuous Jumps

Same as previous exercise without the pause. Players move quickly jumping high over the hurdles without pausing in between.

Key coaching points include: Keep Your Torso Tall, Knees high, Cycle your arms

3. Quick Jumps (Multiple Angles) – Over smaller hurdles

Here the athletes are jumping lower and quicker as they move through the hurdles. First facing forward and then facing to each side. The emphasis here is getting off the ground quickly.

Quick Sand Training

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This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

By Scott O’Dell
Scott O’Dell, MA, CSCS, is the Director of Strength and Conditioning at East Central University of Oklahoma. Author of the book, The Power Revolution, he has been an NSCA conference speaker in areas such as plyometrics and strength development.

sandtraining

Legendary NFL running back Walter Payton retired from the game with a host of league records, including most rushing yards and most all-purpose yards. However, his most impressive achievement may be that, despite playing in one of the league’s most punishing positions, he started every game of his 13-year career but one, and that was due to a coaching decision, not an injury. When asked about his remarkable durability, Payton attributed it to the sand workouts he put himself through in the offseason.

In the time since, the benefits of sand training have been well documented, and athletes ranging from basketball players to boxers have followed Payton’s lead. Sand training is a simple, low-impact form of resistance training. According to a 1998 Belgian study, running on dry sand requires 1.6 times more energy than running on stable surfaces, and walking in sand requires 2.1 to 2.7 times more energy. This increased resistance helps improve quickness and build explosive strength because the muscles experience a greater workload during training exercises.

Another benefit is the instability of the sand, which requires the muscles that stabilize joints in the ankles, knees, hips, lower back, and core to continually compensate and adjust during movement. This causes a greater range of motion in joints and strengthens the muscles, improving balance and preventing injury.

In addition to these stabilizer muscles, prime-mover muscles are activated, making sand training easier on the joints than workouts on stable ground. Sand work also alleviates compressive forces on the joints during running, jumping, and walking. With less stress on the joints, overtraining symptoms are less likely to occur.

A sand workout is also useful for improving an athlete’s cutting ability because the resistance of the sand makes it easier to achieve the ideal 45-degree body angle when accelerating out of a cut. When cutting, the foot plants in the sand, causing the body to react with a harder knee drive upward. This helps develop the high-knee motion critical to the acceleration phase of sprinting and eliminates wasted backward leg movement. It also trains the athlete to keep positive shin angles–where the ankle is behind the knee–which is an important component of acceleration. In addition, maintaining the 45-degree angle keeps an athlete’s hips low while cutting, which provides more activation of the glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps, and takes energy and stress away from the knees.

Positive shin angles can also be developed by performing plyometrics in the sand. These exercises are effective because they force the athlete to perform a hard knee-up, heel-up, toe-up movement to lift the leg after the foot has been driven into the sand.

Here at East Central University of Oklahoma, athletes work out in the sand two days a week during the offseason. When a team first begins plyometric work in the sand, we allow the athletes to run through the exercises at their own pace so their bodies can adjust to the higher workload. Single-response plyometrics such as squat jumps and star jumps are introduced anywhere from one to three weeks later. These exercises involve performing a rep of a movement, reloading and resetting the body, and then repeating the process for the remaining reps. The goal for the athlete is to achieve good technique, while improving flexibility, balance, and overall body strength.

The following techniques should be emphasized during sand training plyometric exercises:

Toes and heels up: The toes and heels should be lifted as high as possible to train the feet to be quicker off the ground and to decrease the impact of landing.

Knees up: Bringing the knees up prepares the lower body to drive forcefully into the ground on the next jump, while also flexing the joints to decrease the force of landing.

Hips up: Exaggerating hip extension generates more power.

Thumbs up: Forcefully swinging the arms ahead of the body will also increase power production.

Muscle tension upon landing: Landing with the muscles in the ankles, knees, and hips flexed will aid in shock absorption, so an athlete will have minimal contact with the ground before springing into the next jump.

Once an athlete has developed proper technique, we focus on flexibility and stabilization by adding multiple-response plyometrics. These movements are performed continuously, without any reloading or resetting in between. Teams are generally ready for multiple-response movements between weeks three and five, depending on how well the athletes progress.

For agility drills, we generally set up two or three stations on each side of the sand pit. We try to incorporate a power cut such as a pro-agility drill to focus on the body mechanics, muscles, and joints of the outside cutting foot, as well as a speed cut like a Figure 8 to perform the same work on the inside cutting foot. Finally, to work on the mechanics, muscles, and joints involved in transitioning from one move to another, we include a transitional agility drill such as a speed square.

Here are the plyometric exercises we use with our men’s and women’s basketball team:

Preseason
– Donkey kick: 2×20 yards
– Tuck jump: 4×6
– Double-leg bound: 2×20 yards
– Single-leg bound: 2×20 yards
– Single-leg speed hop: 2×20 yards per leg
– Skier: 3×10 (5 per leg)

Offseason
– Tuck jump: 4×6
– Squat jump: 3×5
– Star jump: 3×5
– Scissor jump: 3×5
– Two-leg lateral bound: 1×20

Here are the agility exercises we use, both during the preseason and offseason:

– Pro-agility: 1×4
– Figure 8: 1×4
– Speed square: 1×4
– Forward and back: 1×4

 

Range of Motion : Stretching Exercises

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This post originally appeared on www.coachesnetwork.com

In the pursuit of making athletes bigger, stronger, and faster, today’s strength and conditioning coaches and sport coaches are faced with many obstacles. Outside the realms of program design and individual instruction, a coach is challenged with scheduling, staffing, and time constraints. A constant question is: With a limited amount of time to spend with athletes, which conditioning components take precedent?

More often than not, flexibility is the first component that ends up being neglected. However, many athletes today have very poor flexibility, and ignoring this can make your entire strength program inefficient.

WHY STRETCH?

Why is flexibility so important? Without adequate range of motion, an athlete will not get the most out of a strength program. When an athlete begins Olympic lifting, they usually exhibit common technical faults. Errors include improper back position, incorrect weight distribution, excessive trunk flexion, and poor knee tracking. These errors are directly related to lack of flexibility in the hips, upper and lower legs, and shoulders.

Increased flexibility in the hips, shoulders, and lower legs can dramatically increase the athlete’s practical range of motion. This increased ROM then allows the athlete to move more efficiently in their Olympic lifting sessions.

Greater flexibility also improves speed and agility. Most athletes have some technical flaws in their running and movement mechanics, and without adequate flexibility, fixing those flaws is difficult. For an athlete to powerfully accelerate, quickly decelerate, and efficiently change directions, they must be able to lower their center of gravity and manipulate their limbs with little to no internal resistance. Flexibility is the key to proficiently and efficiently executing these biomechanics.

A flexible athlete is also less likely to become injured. Functional flexibility allows athletes to move fluidly and efficiently without resistance into athletic positions. When a certain joint or joint complex is limited in range by tightness, the athlete is limited in function and there is increased risk of injury.

Above all, athletes who can sprint without having their stride length limited by tight hamstrings, hip flexors, or anterior shoulders, and who can quickly drop their center of gravity in the acceleration or deceleration phase uninhibited by tight hip rotators, are athletes who can perform closer to their greatest athletic potential.

When athletes have poor flexibility, many coaches simply tell them to stretch on their own without any instruction or supervision. This is where a strength and conditioning program can break down. The strength coach or sport coach needs to provide a specific program for the athletes and make sure that the athletes know proper stretching technique.

Todd Rice, currently the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at the University of Pittsburgh and formerly at Boston College, takes a proactive approach to increasing an athlete” flexibility. Todd’s program primarily employs active isolated stretching principles (AIS). AIS is the innervating of a muscle (the agonist) to contract resulting in the opposite muscle (the antagonist) becoming inhibited and relaxed. The principle of reciprocal inhibition allows the muscle to lengthen without evoking a stretch-reflex contraction. This creates greater muscle length without any associated micro-trauma.

In Todd’s program, athletes stretch one muscle group at a time, thus actively contracting the muscle opposite the targeted group. The muscle is stretched gently (not to full range or discomfort) for two to three seconds. The stretch is released before the muscle senses the stretch and utilizes the protective contraction, facilitated by the excitatory proprioceptor, or the “The Muscle Spindle.” This is repeated four to 12 times each session.

Some of the stretches are performed with partners and others are conducted without assistance. At the beginning of each season, the coaches do more of the stretching to assure proper form and execution. Once the athletes learn the stretches, they stretch each other while the coaches supervise.

Below is a sampling of some of the stretches used in Todd’s program. Note that the first three are part of the “Sprinters Series,” which develops flexibility in the deep rotators of the hips. Each of these three stretches are done twice, first with active static stretching for 30 seconds, and then again for four to 12 reps with AIS.

Single-Leg Stretch: In this stretch, the athlete lies supine with the left leg straight and the right knee bent into the chest with the foot externally rotated and dorsiflexed. A partner kneels on his or her right knee facing the athlete, and places their right hand above the athlete’s left knee on the thigh to minimize iliopsoas shortening. The partner places their left hand below the athlete’s left bent knee with the athlete’s right foot on the partner’s abdomen, and the partner applies pressure down (toward the floor) and back (toward the shoulder). The process is repeated for the other leg.

Double-Leg Heels on Thighs: Have the athlete lie supine with both knees bent in toward the chest. The feet are externally rotated and dorsiflexed and in line with the knees. The athlete places his heels low on the partner’s thighs. The partner faces the athlete, takes a wide stance, and applies pressure down and back with hands low on the hamstrings.

The athlete should visualize and try to focus on the six deep rotators (piriformis, gemellus superior, gemellus inferior, obturator internus, obturator externus, and quadratus femoris), which collectively originate from the inferior lateral portion of the sacrum and various portions of the ischium and insert on the greater trochanter. With this focus, the athlete should be able to contract the deep rotators through external rotation of the hips. This contraction technique takes both time and good instruction to accomplish.

Double-Leg Feet on Shins: This stretch is quite similar to the heels on thighs stretch. With the legs wider and lower than with the heels on thighs stretch, this movement involves both the deep rotators and the adductor complex.

Hamstring Stretch: Lying on his or her back, the athlete lifts the right leg up to their potential range of motion either with a stretch rope or with assistance from a partner, and straightens the left leg. They first contract the quadriceps muscle group and pull with the hip flexors, then stretch the hamstrings for two to three seconds. This is repeated four to 12 times. Dorsiflexion of the foot will incorporate the gastroc and soleus complex, where plantar flexion will isolate the hamstrings.

Four-Point Lateral External Rotator: This stretch is often performed incorrectly. To start, the athlete gets into the “all fours” position, with knees and forearms on the floor. The athlete allows the knees to spread until a comfortable adductor stretch is achieved. The main focus of this stretch is for the athlete to push his or her hips straight back focusing on the deep rotators of the hips. The buttocks do not move inferior, but slide straight back. Normal range of motion is minimal.

The intent of this stretch is to target the pectineus and the iliacus muscles, which are internal hip rotators. Since both muscles insert on and just below the lesser trochanter of the femur, it is important to keep the pelvis neutral and the back flat while pushing the pelvis away from the femur.

Hip Flexor Stretch: The lunging hip flexor stretch is performed by the athlete on both sides of the body. The left leg is extended into the lunge position with the knee over the arch of the foot, yet not protruding over the toes. The right leg is extended straight back with the weight on the toes. It is very important that the athlete’s back is flat and the torso is upright.

This stretch is enhanced and can be active static if the athlete contracts his or her right gluteus maximus muscle to incorporate reciprocal inhibition for the iliopsoas muscle (iliacus and psoas major and minor). Because the psoas major and iliacus portions of the iliopsoas complex insert on the lesser trochanter, slight internal rotation of the right hip (by pointing the toes in 20 degrees) will lengthen the iliopsoas and increase the stretch.

After these static and active isolated stretches are completed, athletes perform a dynamic flexibility warm up. These exercises consist of knee tucks, butt kicks, triples, walking lunges, and hip rotators, among others.

Flexibility training does not start and end with increasing the athlete’s range of motion. With a program in place that incorporates flexibility training into a full strength and conditioning regimen, your athletes will be able to successfully complete their strength and speed workouts, and they’ll carry these improved fitness levels onto the field.

Injury Prevention, Strength Development, and Recovery

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This article first appeared on  Training and Conditioning

By Tim Crowley

Tim Crowley, CSCS, PES, is the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Montverde (Fla.) Academy. He holds elite coaching licenses with USA Cycling and USA Triathlon, and he has been named Development Coach of the Year and Elite Coach of the Year by the latter organization. He is also the owner of TC2 Coaching, LLC. Crowley can be reached at: tim.crowley@montverde.org.

In the past four years, the athletic programs at Montverde (Fla.) Academy have won eight national championships—four in boys’ soccer, three in boys’ basketball, and one in girls’ soccer. During that time, we’ve also had 170 athletes commit to continue their careers in college.

With so many MVA athletes moving on to the next level after they leave our campus, I’ve had to learn how to prepare them to take this step. I’ve met with many top collegiate strength and conditioning coaches to find out what they want from high school athletes. Unanimously, they said the two most important characteristics for incoming athletes to have were good weightroom skills and being injury-free.

This insight has shaped the way I use MVA’s strength and conditioning program to prepare our athletes for college. First, we focus on increasing their mobility and movement efficiency so they arrive at their next destination injury-free. Then, we implement consistent, progressive training that emphasizes proper lifting mechanics and strength development. Finally, we develop sound nutritional and recovery habits to put our athletes one step ahead of their peers.

By combining all three areas, we have created an effective and efficient program to prepare athletes for the next level. Since we develop the right skills and habits while they are still in high school, we increase their odds for collegiate success.

PREVENTING INJURIES

Too many young athletes suffer career-ending injuries before they even get to college. We prevent this with MVA athletes by targeting problem areas that could leave them vulnerable to injury.

For example, young athletes often lack ankle, hip, thoracic spine, and shoulder mobility. This can lead to poor movement skills, movement compensations, and overuse injuries. We target this issue with exercises that are incorporated into every training session, either during the warm-up or paired with a strength exercise.

In addition, many teen athletes lack the eccentric strength and control necessary for proper stopping, cutting, turning, and landing, which is a main factor in many knee injuries. Strengthening this quality in high school athletes keeps these injuries at bay once they go to college.

To address issues with mobility and eccentric strength and control, we include the following exercises into every training session. Doing so has dramatically reduced our athletes’ incidence and severity of injuries.

• Soft-tissue work: We begin and end all workouts with foam rolling to increase blood flow in muscles and release tight, restricted areas. To target the glutes and calves, we use tennis balls and softballs, and we use golf balls for the plantar fascia.

• Ankle mobility: A lack of ankle mobility can lead to patellar tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and Achilles tendon injuries. To combat this, we include ankle mobility drills in our daily warm-ups. Our standard exercise is similar to a calf stretch—athletes dorsiflex their ankles while keeping their heels on the floor. However, the goal is to increase range of motion at the joint rather than the muscle. This is done by flexing the knee slightly, which takes the tension off of the gastrocnemius. Athletes do one set of 10 on each leg, and reps are done at a rate of one per second.

• Mini band walks: Strengthening the external rotators of the hips and glute medius with band walks reduces the frequency of ankle sprains and increases athletes’ eccentric strength. Our athletes use the bands to walk 10 yards forward, backward, and laterally. Over time, we progress the level of resistance in the bands and extend the distance to 15 yards.

• Mini hurdles: We do hurdle drills after our warm-up and before lifting. These exercises emphasize proper landing skills, which require ankle mobility, hip mobility, eccentric control, and stability. Hurdles also train athletes to decelerate and absorb force in a lateral direction, preventing injuries that come from sudden stops and starts. Some of the movements we use with the hurdles include single-leg linear and lateral hop and stick, as well as two-footed linear and lateral jumps and landings. During workouts, athletes clear four six-inch hurdles at a time and do two sets of each movement. As they advance, we progress to four sets.

STRENGTH FOUNDATION

Many young athletes, especially males, have a bodybuilding mentality when it comes to weight training, focusing solely on muscle size and hypertrophy. Not only can this approach lead to injuries, but it can decrease their speed, power, explosiveness, and mobility, as well. Since these traits are important for any collegiate athlete to have, this mindset isn’t ideal.

Instead, we reinforce that strength training goes beyond pumping iron. Creating good weightroom habits in high school athletes will pay off in the years to come.

To maximize our athletes’ chances of making an impact in college, we focus on developing total athleticism in the weightroom. Specifically, we target movement skills, proper lifting skills, core stability, muscle balance, and Olympic lifting techniques.

For movement and lifting skills, we teach athletes to be “brilliant at the basics.” Included in this are fundamental movement patterns, such as squatting, hinging, pressing, pulling, and rotating.

Every exercise we choose for these movement patterns is thought out in terms of skill progression and risk-benefit. Our goal is to use efficient exercises that have a low risk of injury. For instance, we rarely bench press, since it is time-consuming, and athletes can get more benefit out of chest pressing with dumbbells, cables, or TRX. We also clean and snatch from a hang position. This exercise is very productive for power development but doesn’t have the increased risk of pulling from the floor.

Below are some of our favorite exercises for each fundamental movement pattern we focus on:

• Horizontal pushing: Dumbbell chest presses, one-arm dumbbell chest presses, standing cable one-arm presses, TRX chest presses, and push-up combinations

• Vertical pushing: Barbell push presses; push jerks; split jerks; and one-arm overhead pressing dumbbell, cable, and kettlebell

• Vertical pulling: Pull-ups, chin-ups, band-assisted pull-ups, and one-arm vertical cable rows from plank position

• Horizontal pulling: TRX inverted rows, one-arm cable rows, face pulls

• Squat: Front squats, goblet squats, hex bar squats, rear foot elevated split-squats, TRX one-leg squats, and sideboard with squat

• Ham-glute hinge: Kettlebell swings, hex bar dead lifts, barbell dead lifts, and single-leg dead lifts (bar, dumbbell, kettlebell, and cable)

• Core: Cable lift/chop/anti-rotational presses (progressing from kneeling to half-kneel to standing), kettlebell quarter get-ups, TRX knee-to-chest/body saws, and medicine ball throws

• Power development: Olympic lifting progression and transitional exercises, box jumps, and hurdle hops.

To keep our athletes from developing muscle imbalances that could plague them into their college years, we include equal amounts of pushing and pulling in the upper body, as well as squatting and hinging in the lower body. In addition, we do a lot of single-limb work, such as one-arm pressing and pulling, along with single-leg squatting and dead lifting to create balance.

Instilling basic movement and lifting skills starts with bodyweight exercises and progresses toward resisted exercises when athletes are ready. We coach their technique every day on every set, incorporating short, concise coaching cues to ensure the right form. This process takes time, but it’s crucial if we want to hand our athletes off to collegiate strength coaches with exceptional technique.

A good example of how we build movement and lifting skills is our squatting progression. Squats are a standard in most college strength programs, so we want our athletes to have a good squatting base to build from. Once they master bodyweight squats, we start them on goblet squats with a 22-pound kettlebell. When they can goblet squat at that load with perfect form, we progress them to a 45-pound kettlebell. This makes the transition to squatting with a 45-pound bar seamless and reduces their injury rate when they begin heavier squatting.

Like squats, Olympic lifts are common in collegiate weightrooms. Developing skills in these movements while athletes are in high school builds their athleticism and explosive power and better prepares them to execute at the next level.

While teaching Olympic lifts, it’s beneficial to start with transitional exercises. These allow us to focus on a single aspect or skill of the lift as part of our warm-up to the key lifts. Some of my favorite transitional exercises are:

• Vertical leap from a hang position, which teaches athletes to push their feet into the floor and drive their hips to move the bar explosively

• High pulls from a clean or snatch grip to teach high elbows on pulling

• Snatch balance to teach speed of movement and shoulder mobility

• High cleans from the waist to teach quick pulling to a catch position.

When putting all of our strength elements together in a program, we have found that consistency and intensity are the most important factors to prepare athletes for the next level. Consistent hard work in the weightroom will instill discipline in college, and research has shown that maintaining a high chronic training load leads to reduced injuries.

Considering these two factors, all teams at MVA train a minimum of twice per week for 30 to 60 minutes each day. We complete between three and 10 reps for each movement. Fewer than three increases the risk of injury, but more than 10 puts the athlete into a hypertrophy range without significant strength gains. Neither is beneficial for long-term development.

FINAL PIECE

Perhaps the area that high school athletes know the least about, yet will have arguably the biggest impact on their success at the next level, is recovery. By educating MVA athletes about this topic, we ensure they are ahead of the game when they get to college.

The two areas we focus on are proper nutrition and sleep. We emphasize regular hydration, not skipping meals (especially breakfast), healthy snacking, eating lean protein, and integrating fruits and vegetables each day. There’s also a color-coding system in our cafeteria that helps athletes with portion control. Items marked with a green sticker or serving spoon are healthy, and athletes can have as much of these as they want. Yellow items should be eaten sparingly, and red items should be avoided as much as possible. This approach gets athletes used to recognizing and selecting healthy options at meals, so they are prepared to make the same decisions in a college dining hall.

When it comes to sleep, it is well-documented that adolescents don’t get enough. This problem can get worse once they get to college, due to increased demands on their time. Using articles, posts on our bulletin boards, and regular conversation, we educate our athletes about sleep and ways to develop good sleeping habits.

As a high school strength coach, the ability to positively impact hundreds of athletes each year is a large responsibility, but it’s worth every moment I spend on it. I know that equipping high school athletes with the skills and habits to succeed at the collegiate level will have a lifelong effect on them.

Sidebar 1:

AFTER THEY COMMIT

One of my goals as the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Montverde (Fla.) Academy is to prepare athletes to be successful at the collegiate level. After they commit to a school, my role switches to doing everything I can to help them learn their new team’s training regimen.

My first step is to contact the athlete’s soon-to-be sport coach or strength coach to tell them about my strength and conditioning philosophy. This also gives me the chance to ask if they have a program they want to send for the athlete or any recommendations for areas the athlete should work on. If the school does send a program, we begin teaching it to the athlete so they can master any new exercises before they leave MVA.

Occasionally, the athlete’s new workout plan will differ from the one we use at MVA. When this happens, I put my personal preferences aside and think about what’s best for the athlete. For example, at MVA, we clean and snatch from a hang position. However, when our athletes commit to colleges that clean and snatch from the floor, we integrate this motion into their training so they can develop proficiency in it.

Sidebar 2:

SHORT STAY

Since Montverde (Fla.) Academy is an international boarding school, we often have athletes transfer in for just their junior or senior years. From a strength and conditioning standpoint, this only gives us one or two years to prepare them for the next level.

Despite this shortened time frame, we do not rush the process. Instead, we try to keep things simple and progress from establishing movement skills to incorporating strength exercises at the athletes’ pace. To ease any concern they might have about falling behind, I talk to the athlete about getting better each day and long-term athletic development.

Occasionally, language or cultural barriers can make strength and conditioning with international athletes challenging. In these instances, I have learned to be patient. I demonstrate movements as much as possible and try to find another MVA athlete who speaks their language to serve as an interpreter.

Using these approaches, we recently had success with a Brazilian soccer player at MVA. He arrived on campus about 20 pounds overweight and had never trained in a weightroom before. As a result, he struggled the first year with the language barrier, being away from home, and adapting to our strength and conditioning program.

By introducing our strength training regimen slowly and being sensitive to any communication issues, we got the athlete on board with our program by the end of the school year. He came back for his senior year fully committed and began to realize his potential with hard work and determination. Two months after graduating from MVA, he signed a professional contract with the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer.

Preparing athletes for future success in a short amount of time is definitely a challenge, but it’s one we’ve gotten used to. Once the athletes understand what we are teaching, they give 100 percent, which makes it all worthwhile. With consistent, focused work, you’d be amazed at how much can be accomplished in only a year or two.