Power Athlete: May 2010

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Took a few new pictures….

Intensity and concentration, he finally gets what it takes and it shows. added 30 lean pounds of muscle and took 2 full seconds off of his 40 yd sprint time. Congrats Adam.

Collin, 20 pounds of muscle gain, 2 seconds off of 40 yard sprint time – also gets it! 110 pound dumbbell single snatches, dropped into the catch!

Andrew, 140 pounds bodyweight, 225 pound deadlift for multiple reps, 8th grade. Work Hard, and Smart, results will come

I ask a great deal from all of my athletes. Those with poor work ethic tend not to last long surrounded by those battling everyday to better themselves inch by inch.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Children in sports under massive stress

Article from the NY Times about the level of commitment heaped on young kids playing sports today. Scary stuff. Let them play. Learning to move through play is dead unfortunately, and it falls upon often under qualified sport coaches to teach those those skills as well as the sport’s skills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/25brod.html?ref=sports

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

As I said in an earlier post, I have moved away from a "one size fits all" method, as started looking inward on what aspects bothered me about that approach. First you can only "scale" a workout to any particular level. A ring handstand push up can only be brought down so much before you change the specific demands of the program entirely. I have recently read and watched several interviews a number of athletes that have championed a "one size fits all" method to train athletes at their facilities. When asked about their own training, they now talk about "working on your weaknesses" and such. This points toward individualization for yourself, while still selling the "single system" to their clients, very peculiar?

Working on weaknesses would point toward individualized programming, or at the very least a multi pronged approach, where for example, smaller, weaker athletes work a larger portion of their time on strength based movements, and larger athletes work a majority of the time on bodyweight/metabolic movements and patterns to improve their efficiency. The goal as always to produce a whole, productive athlete.

If you are a parent of a young child, please read!

This article speaks to everything I tell parents of youth athletes. Develop Gross motor movements, and worry less about their "sport specific training" Build athletes first, specialize as they develop!

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/training_for_youth.htm