Athletic Performance Toolbox

Mobility Exercises

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If your athletes are stiff, they are leaking performance.  Mobility exercises are an important component of a strength and conditioning program that can be addressed with these three exercises.

In the video clip below Reid Hall, a highly regarded volleyball strength and conditioning coach, demonstrates three mobility exercises that you could easily work in to your warm-up routine for your training sessions.

Coach Reid states, ” Stiff moving athletes are leaking performance. If you want to get closer to your genetic potential then you need to be fluid moving. Performing some high quality mobility exercises in your warm up before practice and workouts can often help save you from long list of potential injuries”

Each of the mobility exercises detailed in the clip below works multiple muscle groups. The fist exercise is called Inch Worm and should be performed for approximately 10-15 yards. The Inch Worm is a simple exercise that most are familiar with and may already utilize.  Coach Reid calls his second the Spiderman Lunge + Thoracic Opener and should be performed 5-8x per side. This is a great exercise as its many components provide mutltiple benefits for the athlete. The final multi-functional mobility exercise is the the Quad Stretch-Side Lunge-Overhead Reach which should be completed 6x per side.

Coach Reid has many great training ideas for volleyball players. To see more great training tips and to learn more about how Coach Reid can help improve your players check out his YouTube Channel or visit his site Reids Workouts

The YouTube video below has audio so please make sure your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site. . Click the arrow to play the video. Please note that some schools block access to YouTube. If you are having trouble viewing the clip from school, please contact your network administrator.

Joys of Jumping

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

If an athlete needs to be stronger, faster, or more agile, have them work with a jump rope. While some coaches might think that jumping rope should be relegated to elementary school gym class, the reality is that this simple exercise is a cost effective way to help every athlete excel.

According to an article for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA) by Tim Meyer, CSCS, the benefits of jumping rope are not purely physical. Instead, athletes are also working on neuromuscular patterns, body awareness, and coordination. While jumping, your brain has to communicate with your arms and legs to refrain from getting entangled and becoming injured.

“Once you integrate more complex jump rope patterns, you further increase the level of effectiveness of the exercise,” writes Meyer. “These issues are highly overlooked in the athletic development of young athletes, yet they are critical to their success.”

Jumping rope can also strengthen muscles in the feet, ankles, and knees. This creates stability for joints in the legs, which Meyers explains is important to sport specific movements such as sprinting, cutting, jumping, and landing. By strengthening these muscles, athletes are less likely to become injured. Jumping rope also helps prevent injury by teaching athletes how to properly jump.

“Consistently landing from a jump incorrectly is a surefire way to get injured,” writes Meyer. “Jumping rope properly teaches the athlete how to land and absorb impact with ‘soft knees’ and by landing on the toes before transferring pressure to the balls of the feet.”

Beyond injury prevention, jumping rope can also be used to develop both speed and strength, as it is a plyometric activity. While jumping, Meyers writes that athletes strengthen their Achilles tendon and train their calf muscles to absorb force and use it to move quickly into another jump.

In an article for Stack.com, John M. Cissik, President of Human Performance Services, LLC, echoes the sentiment that using this simple instrument can greatly benefit your athletes’ strength and power.

“Jumping rope, especially when you move into more advanced exercises will increase your athleticism and foot speed,” he writes. “This is important for every athlete regardless of the sport.”

The more intricate the movement with the jump rope, the more your athlete will benefit. In his blog, Cissik offers a progression into some of the more advanced exercises that can be added to an athlete’s workout.

1. Up and Down

Cissik suggests that athletes should master the regular motions of jumping rope before learning more complex movements. First, he says to make sure the rope is the correct length—it should go to your armpits.

“Once you have the length for the rope, stand up and hold a rope handle in each hand. Your hands should be at your sides, roughly at hip level,” writes Cissik. “Keep your knees soft, but perform the exercise using your ankles (this is not a jump from your knees!) Begin with the rope behind your body. Rotate it so that it moves behind you, over you and in front of you. As it approaches the ground, hop up using your ankles so that the rope travels under your feet. Repeat this motion, attempting to establish a rhythm.”

2. Side to Side

Once you get used to the regular movement of jumping rope, and can do so for 30-60 seconds, you are ready to move on to more complex exercises. The first progression is movement from side to side.

“Now, instead of jumping up and down you will jump from one side to the other as the rope rotates in front of the body,” he writes. “You are still jumping over the rope, but this is occurring as you move from side to side. Again, this should be an efficient movement from your ankles.”

3. Forward and Backward

As with the previous movement, Cissik suggests not moving on until you can jump from side to side for 30-60 seconds. For this next exercise, hop forward and backward over the rope.

4. On One Foot

Once you have mastered the above exercises, you can do any of them on one foot. For this, Cissik suggests moving through the same progression, simply picking one foot off of the ground. He also recommends beginning with a low volume of 5-10 repetitions on each foot.

These exercises can be implemented into any workout plan that is targeting the conditioning of your athlete. However, Cissik explains that athletes can also jump rope for five minutes or so as a warm up.

“The rope will increase heart rate, get blood moving throughout the body, warm the joints, burn calories and develop the foot speed/athletic qualities that we want,” he writes. “This is a great way to start the warm-up before moving to mobility drills, technique drills or light sets. I think this is especially appropriate before athletic practices; for example, five minutes of jumping rope before beginning basketball practice.”

Jump Drills

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Enhance the speed and agility component of your training and conditioning program with these simple jump drills and coaching points.

In the video clip below  Steven Kenyon, former National Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year and founder of Speed Strength Training, presents Jump Drills as part of his 10 Speed and Agility Weightroom Drills presentation at a recent Glazier Athletic Performance Clinic.

Coach Keynon shares his thoughts on the advantages of these exercises and provides key coaching points so that the athletes will get maximum benefits of each exercise.

Here are the jumps covered in this clip:

  • Tuck Jumps
  • Stick Jumps
  • Multiple Hurdle Jumps
  • Depth Jumps

For information about gaining access to Coach Kenyon’s complete presentation, as well as hundreds of other great athletic performance clinic presentations, click the link Glazier Athletic Performance Clinics The clip below has audio, so please make sure that your sound is turned on. Click the arrow to play the video.

 

ACL Injury Reduction Exercises

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ACL injury prevention and rehabilitation is an essential practice every coach should use to keep their team at full strength and free from injuries. This practice includes prevention, but also what to look for if the injury happens and how to get your athlete back to competition quickly and safely.

In the two video clips below Jake Moore; DPT; APTA Credentialed Clinical Instructor; Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coach Certified, Physical Therapist/Strength and Conditioning Coach, Gilbert (IA) High School; USA Weightlifting Club Coach,  discusses body positions that tend to produce ACL injuries and in the second video he offers two exercises to help reduce and recondition ACL injuries.

The following is a brief explanation of body positions that tend to produce ACL Injuries:

  1. Abducted hip with externally rotated foot
  2. Knees tend to be bent less that 30-degrees (important to teach athletes to bend knees more when cutting)
  3. Trunk tilted or rotated towards the plant leg
  4. Posterior ground reaction force
  5. Internally rotated knee

In the second video Coach Moore demonstrates and explains the two exercises that improve the posterior chain strength of athletes, the Double Leg Romanian Dead Lift (RDL) and the Single Leg RDL.

Key coaching points for the Double Leg RDL:

  1. Feet should be shoulder width apart
  2. Slight knee bend
  3. Push hips back
  4. Squeeze shoulder blades
  5. Toes straight ahead
  6. Slide dumbbells down the leg and come back up
  7. All of the weight should be on the heels
  8. Flat though the back
  9. Shin angle should be nearly vertical
  10. All of the movement should be through the hip joint

Key coaching points of the Single Leg RDL:

  1. Stand on one leg with slight knee bend
  2. Bend at the hip
  3. Swing leg back behind as you bend at the hip
  4. Work to keep the knee in line with the toes on the leg that is staitionary
  5. Hips should stay level as you swing leg back
  6. Try not to let the swing leg touch the ground when you come back up

For more information about the DVD that these two clips were taken from, click the link ACL Risk Reduction & Reconditioning

The YouTube videos below have sound. Make sure that your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site. Please note that some schools block access to YouTube.

 

Keep Hamstrings Strong

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This post was provided by Coaches Network

While they don’t get the attention that more high-profile conditions do, hamstring injuries are chronic problems for athletes regardless of the sport they play. And the lengthy recovery time often associated with them can be frustrating. Now, researchers are hoping that a new hamstring strengthening program can keep athletes on the field.

A study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) annual meeting outlined a program that showed promise in not only reducing the frequency of the injury in athletes but shortening the amount of time missed by those who do suffer it.

Lead researcher Holly Silvers-Granelli, MPT, explained that she selected 213 athletes from one professional baseball organization—40 players from the major league team and 173 players from five different minor league clubs—to participate in the study.

After each athlete completed a questionnaire that detailed his hamstring injury history, the teams’ medical staffs—including physicians, athletic trainers, and strength and conditioning coaches—were given parameters of the program, along with instructions on how to implement it. Exercises for the athletes included both concentric and eccentric hamstring exercises and lumbo-pelvic stability.

Researchers monitored the rates of program compliance for the athletes in both groups and then tracked the rate of hamstring injuries and the time lost to those injuries. At the end of the season, the data was analyzed, and compared to an age and skill-matched control group from Major League Baseball.

The rate of hamstring injury was significantly lower for both the major and minor-leaguers who participated in the program. Major leaguers saw a 25 percent reduction in the rate of injury, while the minor leaguers saw their injury rate decreased by 40 percent.

In addition, players in both groups who did suffer a hamstring injury saw their time on the sidelines greatly reduced. The major leaguers lost an average of nine days—compared to 25.9 days for members of the control group. Meanwhile, the minor leaguers lost an average of 11.63 days compared to the 21.3 days lost by minor leaguers in the control group.

The study is going to continue for an additional season, and researchers are still trying to determine the best way to implement these types of prevention programs. However, they are pleased with the findings and confident that the information will be useful for both athletes and medical professionals.

“Our study confirmed that utilizing hamstring injury prevention programs can help lessen lost play time and be a cost efficient way to do so. Further research is needed to fine tune the best mechanisms for these injury reduction programs,” Silvers-Granelli said.

Coaches should consider adding the Nordic hamstring exercise to their strength training program. This is an eccentric hamstring strengthening exercise that elicits greater activation of the hamstring compared to many other exercises. A website calledthesportsphysiotherapist.com contains information on performing the Nordic hamstring exercise and has a video on how to perform it properly.

An article on the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) website states that an eccentric exercise series is an effective way to strengthen hamstrings. Using eccentric box drops as a sample series, the article recommends that the athlete “begins by stepping up onto a box (12 to 36 inches high). He or she then steps off the box and lands in a squat position.” The article advises: “Do not land in a static position. Allow for full flexion of the hips, knees, and ankles upon foot contact. To end the exercise, place the hands on the knees and push up into a standing position; do not jump out of the bottom position. Do not perform more than 12 drops in a set.”

The NSCA article also suggests that athletes perform the following additional eccentric box drop exercises: eccentric backward steps; eccentric loaded lunge drops; eccentric forward pulls; eccentric stiff-leg dead lifts and concentric Romanian dead lifts; eccentric single-leg dead lifts; and eccentric split-stance Zerchers.  Click here to read the full story.