Athletic Performance Toolbox

Level 2 Plyometrics

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This post is courtesy of ONEighty Athletics

The ability to apply a reactive force is the major goal of plyometric training.
An increase in power will directly correlate to an increase in Speed and Explosion.
We will implement plyometrics on Monday and Thursday during our speed / plyo
workouts.

It is extremely important to land properly when absorbing force.

Key Cues:
Feet under hips, hips above knees, in power position, chest tall, knees over toes,
weight on front two-thirds of feet.
Perfect takeoff and landing technique. Don’t land below parallel!
Camps & Combines rate and rank players off of verticals, broad jumps, and 40
times make sure you attack these drills!

In the video below Coach Michael Cano, of ONEighty Athletics ,takes a group of athletes through a series of 4 plyometic drills.

Here are the drills that are executed in the video

1.) Quick Feet Lateral Direction Intent
(4 whistles each rep)
(Quick Feet then Whistle)
– Proper shin angle, aggressive ground contact

2).Lateral Direction Intent with SL Hop
3.) Rotational Jumps
(each whistle 2 jumps)
4.)SL Hop Off Left- SL Hop Off Right- Sl Hop Off Left
Finish Where You Start (3 Jumps)

The YouTube video below as audio, so please make sure that your speakers are turned on and that you have access to the site. Note that some schools block access to YouTube.

5 Ways to be a Better Leader

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

How do we become better leaders? An effective leader is someone who can create an inspiring vision, motivate and inspire their team, manage the delivery of that shared purpose and then coach and improve that team in order to achieve that end goal. So what are the best leadership skills, and what are the keys to becoming a better leader?

1. UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
According to research, there are loads of different leadership styles and they vary between men and women. However, 4 main styles have been commonly agreed. These four leadership styles include autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire and transformational. By finding out what type of leader you are, you will then be able to identify your strengths and areas in which you need to improve.

For more ideas on how to help your team members develop and improve, have a look at our page on how to improve metacognition.

Autocratic

This leadership style includes, close supervision, lack of input from followers, complete control and solo decision-making.

Democratic

This leadership style includes, shared decision-making responsibilities, social equality, creativity and high engagement from group members.

Laissez-faire

This style includes, little direction from the leader, lots of freedom for group members, team members are responsible for making all decisions and a great deal of autonomy.

Transformationala-better-leader

People who have this leadership style are often described as energetic, passionate, enthusiastic, trustworthy, creative and intelligent.

A more in-depth description of these styles can be found here.

2. Be a role model

This doesn’t necessarily mean leading from the front, as keeping a watchful eye from a distance can allow your team to develop their own forms of leadership and management strategies. This point refers to the way you, as the leader, exemplify your behaviours and characteristics for your team to follow. Your actions can have a profound impact on the behaviours of your team. Research has shown that by showing your organisation what is possible, a leader can empower them to develop their own skill sets.

3. Be authentic

Being authentic in your approach to leadership provides your group with a true understanding of who you are as a person, away from your professional role. Research has shown that by doing what is promised, being visible to your organisation and being honest helps manifest a sense of trust within the group you’re leading. Be true to your values and in doing so, your team can understand the direction you want to take them in.

4. Listen to, and communicate with, your team

Research has shown that non-verbal cues like body language, facial expressions, eye movement and hand motions are an important form of communication. Matching your non-verbal cues to your actions and words can help with authenticity.

Whilst verbally and non-verbally communicating with your team, it is also important to listen to what they have to offer. Be an active listener, in doing so approach conversations with concentration and regard for the speaker’s thoughts and considerations. Likewise, studies have shown that skilled listeners also pick up on the speaker’s underlying thoughts and concerns by tuning into their non-verbal cues, showing genuine care for the person’s feelings and morale.

5. Motivate your team

Leaders can motivate people in various ways, but by making sure the individuals inside the team understand that their investment of time and effort is something worthwhile, and can encourage the desired actions. Evidence indicates that this can be done by providing recognition and praise, offering rewards, inclusion and by being passionate.

Final thought

John F. Kennedy once said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” Highlighting how leadership is a constant learning process and that it can most definitely be taught. Anyone can become a great leader as long as you are willing to listen and learn.

Prioritize Progress

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This article was provided by Busy.Coach, a great source of ideas for the coach that want to improve their productivity

By Mandy Green

So as you are headed back to work after the holiday break, hopefully you have already set up your plan of attack.  Are you ready to have the best year, best month, best week, and best day ever with your program, recruiting, and career as a coach?

If your response to that sentence was, “yeah right, I wish,” I imagine that last school year was filled with people, texts, emails, and voice messages begging for your time, attention, and energy.

As you look back over this past year, would you say that you had more wins or losses for you each day work wise?  By winning, I mean did walk into your office with a plan and then you dominated your day by actually getting your most important work done?  I would consider the day a loss if you found yourself giving your time, attention, and energy away freely to anybody who asked for it.  And then before you knew it, your days were gone and you had no sense of accomplishment or progress.

If you are finding that more often than not, your days were on the frustrating side because you didn’t feel like you made any significant progress towards your vision and goals, it goes back at some point to how you are prioritizing things during those days.

How have you been doing in this department? Really think about it. Do you feel like you are proactive and in control of your days or do you just wake up and respond to everybody all day? Obviously as coaches, we have to be available to our team, staff, administration, and recruits, but not as much as you may think or are currently doing.

Today I want to teach you one new way to think about your prioritization. When you do a better job of prioritizing things, I know that you will find that you will start having more wins than losses day by day.

Stop prioritizing the easy.  You know if you are guilty of prioritizing easy if your day feels like there is a whole lot of busy work but you don’t feel as if you’re spending a significant amount of time on work that can make your program better.  I’m sure that you probably intended to do a significant amount of high priority work before you got in the office.  But you think that to get a great start to the day and to build some momentum, you will just get some of the easy things off of your to-list. And then what tends to happen is that you never ever really get around to doing work that will really move the needle for your program.

Coach, you set up your day.  You can choose to do things first that will make a real difference in your program and could change your program for the better in a significant way.  Sure, those other things need to get done.  But choose to do them only after you have spent at least 90 minutes on high priority things.

Stop prioritizing easy, “prioritize progress”.  Things that matter to your program. When you are planning your day, ask yourself, what 3 things must happen today that will get me some real movement forward? I want you to take on something hard every single day. If you do that you will start to find yourself getting a little bit more confident, more momentum, and more into that space where you’ll feel like you are doing things you were meant to do.

For more great ideas to improve your productivity visit Busy.Coach

7 Tips for a Great Pre-Game Meal

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Eating properly before competition is extremely important if athletes are to perform at an optimal level. However, as we all know, getting high school athletes to eat the rights stuff and the right time is difficult. Here are some simple guidelines for them to follow.

This post is courtesy of My Sports Dietitian

By Tavis Piattoly MS, RD, LDN

Which Athlete are You?
The bell just rang and school is out! The game is 3 hours away and the coach dismissed the team to go get something to eat and be back in an hour.

Athlete #1
Goes to McDonalds, 2 double cheeseburgers, large fries and large coke.

Athlete #2
Two turkey sandwiches, fruit, and a low calorie drink from home.

Athlete #1  or Athlete #2  will experience the following?

  1. Significantly have more energy in the second half of the game?
  2. Still have large amounts of fat in their digestive system during the game?
  3. Be dehydrated and sluggish?
  4. Most likely to get abdominal cramps before, during or after the game?
  5. Recovers quicker the next day from muscle fatigue?
  6. Spent more money?
  7. Planned poorly and has no real sports nutrition goals?

7 Tips for a Great Pre-Game Meal 

  1. Don’t Experiment
    Don’t try new foods on a game day, it might cause unexpected problems.

     2. Avoid Soft Drinks and Candy
          Sugar is your enemy, empty calories that don’t provide long term fuel source

     3.High Carbohydrates
          Never can go wrong with breads, pasta, rice…pure long lasting energy source.

     4.Timing
         Takes about 3 hours to empty the stomach of quality food.

     5. Fluids
         Plenty of water and sports drinks…stay away from carbonated sugary soft drinks.

     6. Avoid High Fat Intake
         Fat takes longer to digest and lots of water to process.

     7. Limit Protein Intake
        Protein is a weak energy source, great for building tissue but limit the amount prior to game.

Giving the Hamstrings Some Extra Attention

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This post was provided by Training-Conditioning

Strong, healthy hamstrings are key to athletic performance. There are many traditional exercises, such as Deadlift and Squat variations, that are great for building hamstring strength, but there are also a few less conventional exercises that can help give these important muscles a little extra attention. Considering the vital role hamstrings play, these extra exercises may be worth incorporating into your training.

According to Justin Ochoa, owner of PACE Fitness Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana, and contributor to stack.com, hamstrings are often massively under-trained, despite being such an important part of the athlete’s body. These muscles run from the pelvis, across the knee joint, and end in the lower leg on the posterior part of the thigh, which means they are involved in flexion of the knee, extension of the hip, and stabilization of the knee. They also play a major role in speed and deceleration.

That’s why Ochoa suggests going beyond the conventional exercises to provide this major muscle group with some extra attention, which will help optimize health and performance.

Stability Ball Inverted Hamstring Curl

This movement may look easy, but it’s actually quite challenging and requires a lot of core and hamstring stability. If you imagine the typical hamstring curl, this exercises looks much like an inverted version of that.

With the stability ball supporting your back, get your body into a bridge-like position and keep your feet on the ground. Activate your anterior core by locking your rib cage down and creating tension with your upper-back. Then do your hamstring curl by using your feet to dig through the ground and pull your body forward until your hamstrings contract. Reset and repeat.

Flexline Prone Hamstring Curl

While Ochoa’s example uses a unique piece of equipment called a Flexline, cable machines or other similar pieces of equipment can be used as a substitute. While doing this exercise, focus on tension and position.

To begin, place yourself in a very passive posterior pelvic tilt over a BOSU Ball or any other round object. After doing this, your head should be the part of your body that is furthest away from the machine. Once in position, reduce the amount of anterior pelvic tilt and lumbar extension to get into a more hamstring-friendly position. Finally, attach an ankle cuff or cable fixture to your ankles and isolate the hamstrings while going in and out of knee flexion.

Single-Leg RDL Handoffs

Ochoa stresses that single-leg exercises are also very important when it comes to strengthening the hamstrings. That’s why he includes this RDL variation, which targets your lower body and core stability, and helps improve general strength.

Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell of the desired weight, get into a single-leg RDL, and hold the bottom position. While staying in this position, slowly pass the weight from hand to hand for the desired time and reps. Ochoa explains that this exercise loads the hamstrings both statically and dynamically while introducing upper extremity movement as an added challenge. For athletes with leg strength deficiencies, balance issues, or limited core stability, this is an especially helpful exercise.